Google Shares Surge On Market Forecasts
On Friday Google stocks soared up 20 percent on earnings news to trade at over 100% of its lower than expected IPO price two months ago. Google reported an earnings report on Thursday which showed large gains in come due to to the Google AdWords advertising program and its contextual counterpart, Google AdSense. Google’s shares shot up to $180.17, over two times the amount of the $85 a share IPO price. Some analysts and web industry experts have not seen this kind of action since the dot com boom.
To add to the google mayhem, one seasoned broker said Google could hit $200. Rueters reports that Prudential Equity Group analyst Mark Rowen repeated his “overweight” rating on Google and raised his price target for the stock to $200 from $130 on what Rowen dubbed “blowout” third-quarter results. Total revenue in the quarter totaled a record $805.9 million, representing a 15 percent increase over the second quarter of 2004 and a 105 percent year-over-year gain. The revenue generation was more or less split between Google owned sites and web sites which are part of the Google AdSense program.
Google-owned sites, which run the Google AdWords search advertising results, generated $411.7 million or 51 percent of total revenue. This represents an increase of 99 percent over the third quarter of 2003. Google AdSense and Google partners (such as Lycos and AOL) contributed $384.3 million, or 48 percent of total revenue, a 120 percent increase over the Network revenue generated in the same quarter last year.
Why is Google kicking the stock market like Heavy G the Overweight Lover? Well, possibly because Google is still growing! These numbers are only the calm before the storm, with Google unleashing Desktop Search, GMail, Google Groups, and more of a personalized search and portal like atmosphere to normal web users (and not just searchers). Furthermore, Google dived headfirst into the Local Search Marketing market with its Gogole Local and recently into the online book market with Google Print. Not only that, but industry speculation has spun Google into the web of online browsers and operating systems. Ladies and gentlemen, Google is big and highly profitable.
