Around the Net

Reading The Tea Leaves Of Google's Earnings

Once again, as you've probably heard, Google beat the street with $6.67 billion in revenues in the fourth quarter of what can safely be described as a difficult year for American enterprise.

So, the search giant appears to have a pretty solid business model. We knew that. But, does the news hold deeper meaning? Yes, according to Fast Company, which writes: "With economists and the tired-out general public desperately sniffing the air for the scent of economic recovery, results from a giant like Google are extremely significant."

Making an perhaps obvious but important point, VentureBeat notes: "The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is closely watched as its fortunes mirror the state of the Internet economy."

For his part, Google head Eric Schmidt was careful to say that the "global economy is still in the early days of recovery." Google's earnings also contained positive signs for new business frontiers, and mobile in particular. Writes GigaOm: "Executives that said alongside the larger category of display advertising, mobile will be the No. 1 growth area in the next year, with significant revenue to accompany the widespread uptake of mobile devices that can handle data."

Yet, not all is cherries and chocolate in Googleland. "Despite the gains, the company's numbers barely edged out most estimates from Wall Street analysts," according to The Los Angeles Times' Technology blog. That led the company's stock price to drop nearly 5% in after-hours trading.

Added MarketWatch: "Several analysts maintained their bullish long-term view in the wake of the report, noting that Google missed higher 'whisper' numbers even though it handily beat Wall Street's consensus."

According to Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal, Google is "increasingly becoming a show-me story" and needs to demonstrate an ability to ramp up businesses outside of its core Web search unit.

Read the whole story at Fast Company et al. »

Next story loading loading..