Google is on track to surpass £1 billion in gross advertising revenue in the UK this year after it revealed that it had achieved £295.7 million of bookings in the first quarter.

That theoretically puts Google within touching distance of ITV1’s advertising revenues. Britain’s biggest commercial channel took an estimated £327 million in the first three months of 2007.

However, Google’s revenue figure — revealed in its record first-quarter results released late on Thursday — is gross of third-party payments.

These amounted to 31 per of revenues, meaning that Google’s actual first-quarter UK turnover was about £204 million.

Nevertheless, the data reveals how the world’s leading search engine, which also runs Britain’s most popular websites, has burst on to the scene as a major recipient of advertising — and almost none of it is display or graphical.

Google is obliged to publish UK figures because its business here is more than 10 per cent of the whole. Until now the company had only released the data direct to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, but on Thursday it included the data in its earnings release.

On a constant currency basis, Google’s advertising bookings are up by 51 per cent on the first quarter of last year — just below the company’s overall growth rate of 63 per cent — and 21 per cent ahead of the Christmas quarter. If the first-quarter trend continued, Google’s gross advertising revenues for all of 2007 would be £1.31 billion.

ITV and other broadcasters report their advertising revenues net. Google’s net advertising is predicted, on current trends, to reach £903 million, ahead of Channel 4 on about £800 million, but for now behind ITV plc’s expected £1.4 billion.

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