“Larry is ready to lead,” Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

Google announced today that Larry Page, co-founder of Google, will replace the search engine’s decade long CEO, Eric Schmidt starting April 4, 2011. The news came when Google announced its fourth quarter and 2010 fiscal year earnings. Read the statement here.

Page, who served as CEO prior to Schmidt, will overtake the day-to-day operations, while Schmidt becomes Executive Chairman and focuses on external business opportunities for the company, in addition to, “government outreach and technology thought leadership.” Schmidt will continue his role as adviser to co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

In a statement, Schmidt announced that Google had a stellar year and that, “These results give us the optimism and confidence to invest heavily in future growth — investments that will benefit our users, Google and the wider web.”

Google Financial Reporting

Revenues for the quarter ending December 31, 2010 were $8.44 billion. That’s a 26% increase over the fourth quarter of 2009.

$2.50 billion in revenue was generated by Google’s partner sites through AdSense programs. That’s a 22% increase from the last quarter in 2009.

52% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 were generated outside the United States of America.

Aggregate paid clicks, including AdSense-related clicks, were up 18% as compared to the fourth quarter in 2009, with an average cost-per-click up 5%.