On a webcast with Google regarding Q2 earnings …
Ms Byer is on the line with an assortment of Google Executives including none only than Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google’s co-founders for those of you not yet aware). They will be discussing a number of areas including AnWords and, more importantly to many of you, Click Fraud.
The press release just put out at http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/revenues_q205.html shows record earnings of $1.384 billion. This is up 24% over the same period last year.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt discusses the financials …
30% of revenue was generated from non-US endevors and, according to Google, stands to increase further. this matches with their press release on the 19th of July, 2005 at http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/rd_china.html noting the launch of an R&D; center in China.
Revenues are expected to be lower than Q2 than Q3, this is based on past Internet traffic and search statistics and not a reflection of any diminishing of Google’s own influence (I’m just telling like I’m hearing it from Google). 😉
Larry Page is now on the line to discuss innovation …
Larry is mentioning:
Google Maps and Google Earth. Well worth checking out at http://earth.google.com/.
Personalized search which I wasn’t astounded with but which you can check out at https://www.google.com/psearch/login?prev=/psearch.
Google video which we covered on our blog here.
Desktop search enhancements which you can look into here. Call me paranoid but I don’t like that Microsoft already pretty much owns my computer and the data on it (have you actually read their license agrements) … I’m not about to voluntarily let a company scan my hard drive voluntarily. Sorry Google …
Google mobile which provides a search engine for those on mobile devices. You can access it at http://mobile.google.com/.
Discussing advertising is Sergey Brin …
After discussing how they are excellent at preventing click fraud (I have a couple clients who would love to chat with them about THAT claim) they move on to say that their revenue from Advertising is up 115% over the same quarter last year.
Question Period:
Taking questions from the listeners Mary Meeker asks about video search and where it’s going.
Googles answer revolved around copyright and their desire to respect the owners and if possible provide a way to purchase their product (video) right off Google (and thus we await Google Wallet … coming soon to a website near you).
JP Morgan asked about the minimum-bid drop for high priced search phrases on AdWords.
Google answers that this is done by sector and in response to what they determine as sectors where the most relevant results are the highest bidding and other sectors where the most relevant appear to be the lowest bidders.
Jordan Rohan asks about growth in smaller markets and regional trends in Europe over the US>
Google answers that there had been no specific research done on this however it’s definitely a major factor in revenue to Google though it appears to be a factor in both regions and not specific to one area specifically.
Mark Mang asked about the % of revenue generated from GMail, maps, etc.
Google answers that the details haven’t been broken out but somehow they know that after a couple years the products tend to become more profitable. Which leads me to ask, how would they know this if they didn’t break out revenue by property? 😉
Keith Terry asked about the developments in China and the challenges that that specific market poses and distribution with government filtering.
Google answers that they have a significant market share in China and solid distribution. they look forward to further enhancing their exposure and access to the market and it’s revenue.
Richard Keisler asked them to speak about their mobile efforts to deal with SMS and further advancements in mobile services.
Google answers that they’re getting significant increases in use of their mobile services and that maps, etc. will increase in use.
Mark Rowlan asked what percent of Google’s searches are local in nature and the use of national advertisiers appearing in the sponsored listings and the challenges of getting small businesses into AdWords.
Google answers that there’s a good percentage of local searches on their main site and that which there are national advertisers they’re working to get them to get them to point their ads to their local sites.
Ben Shactor asked how map and Earth usage patterns differ from initial estimates.
Google answers that usage is much higher than initially planned.
Kristina Falls asked what about advertisers and the growth of the search from Google over the slower growth from the network and what exactly will be launched with Google wallet.
Google answers that the slower increases from the network has not negatively impacted revenue. it was a slower increase as opposed to a decrease.
Additionally regarding Google wallet, they responded that they want to handle the advertising network to help merchants but note that they’re not going head to head with PayPal right now.
? Asked (sorry, didn’t catch the name) about hiring and the seasonal natural of it with 700 people being hired recently.
Google answered that they have decided to step up hiring to further provide cutting edge products and services and consistenly provide leading edge techonology.
And that’s where it ended.
For more details on how Google’s doing check our their press release (above) or, if you read this blog post before August 1st you can listen to the webcast i just did by calling l 888-203-1112 from within the U.S. (719-457-0820 from outside the U.S.) and entering confirmation code 4665218.