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What's Google's Next Act?

  • Fortune, Friday, July 30, 2010 12:51 PM
With the soaring IPOs and market-share gains disappearing in the rearview mirror, Fortune takes a serious look at Google, and how the search giant plans to achieve "Google-like" growth going forward. "Its core business is slowing, its stock is down, its Android mobile platform generates scant revenue, and competition (hello, Facebook) is fierce," Fortune writes of Google.

What's more, "There is (at long last) fresh competition from Microsoft's Bing, and also a new wave of sites and services that offer alternatives for consumers' time and attention -- and the advertisers that follow them." Long-term growth projections for Google's search business are now in the 15% to 17% range -- down from the 30% or 40% gains over years past. At least according to Fortune, Google "seems unsure about how to move beyond the core search business." Indeed, despite large and myriad acquisitions, Google's main focus remains driving people back to the search box and its search-centered AdSense products. Analysts estimate that 91% of Google's revenue -- and an estimated 99% of its profit -- still comes from Google's AdWords and AdSense business.

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