Google profit sank 68 percent, to $382 million in the fourth quarter, but still beat analysts estimates.

Google net income was $1.21 per share compared with $3.79 per share a year ago in the when the company earned $1.21 billion. The company said the fall was due to impairment charges on its investments in Clearwire Corp and Time Warner Inc unit AOL.

Total sales were still growing, however, rising 18 percent to $5.7 billion compared a year ago when the company generated $4.83 billion revenue.

The results were better than expected. Excluding onetime charges, the profit was $5.10 per share, compared to Wall Street estimates of 4.95 per share, according to a survey of analysts from Thomson Reuters.

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