Google's Financial Analysis

Google is a well known company and many people use to talk about it, a book « The Google story » has been written and many websites are talking about this company.

Today, Google, Inc. is worth more than General Motors, McDonald's and Disney combined, and the company continues to model the way in the global technology industry in which it competes. In fact, the company's name has become a verb and it is common practice for consumers to "Google" what they want to find online. To determine how Google, Inc. reached this dazzling level of performance in a relatively short period of time, this paper provides an analysis of the three external environments in which Google competes, the general environment, the industry environment and the competitor environment. Next, a discussion of two specific strategic issues as well as opportunities and threats that are facing Google, Inc. is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

Google Inc. is one of the leading computer search engines in the world and is continuing to grow as the

Google Inc. is one of the leading corporations in the Global IT industry. It has various strengths and core competencies which make it the number one company in

Google Inc., American search engine company founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Google handled 70 percent of worldwide online search requests, placing it at the heart of most Internet users’ experience. Even though Google’s essential core business is search service, it now offers more than 50 percent Internet services and products from Gmail and online document creation to software for mobile phones and tablet computers. Google successfully maintained its core competence meanwhile expanded its business to advertisement and application three major core businesses. Its success in market levitates Google’s growth by acquiring other tech companies as a way of horizontal integration. For example, its 2012 acquisition of Motorola Mobility put it in the position to sell hardware in the form of mobile phones. Google’s broad product portfolio and size make it one of the top influential conglomerate companies in the high-tech market place. Google plays a very vital role in ICT ecosystem and it is one of the forces that enhance the growth of entire ICT ecosystem. For further illustrating the ICT ecosystem, I chose Apple and Comcast as device and Internet infrastructure firm to compare and contrast against Google.

Due to the increased competition from Yahoo and Microsoft, it has posed a great threat to Google Company. Entry of such like companies in the market has been relatively easy and even offering similar services to the consumers is no longer a problem as unlike a while back, technology has greatly improved. With an improvement in technology, creating sites that help people access information from the internet has been quite cheap and all it calls for is the creativity of a company. Google, however, has been able to remain at the top of the chart. They have been able to come up with a user-friendly search engine for their clients, one that is easy to understand as well as easy to use. Also, Google has been able to cut on cost as they are able to create web pages using UNIX web servers which are relatively cheap. This makes it possible for them to minimize the cost of input and hence maximizing their profit margins. This makes it possible for them to hire qualified personnel, offer quality services, advertise their products, and even offer promotions, helping them overcome the competition in the market structure.

Google makes money from searches by selling promoted advertising based on search keywords. The ads are more powerful than traditional advertising because they can be targeted by interest and geography. Advertisers like the program because they can get real-time feedback on the effectiveness and engagement of their ads. This continues to be the backbone of Google's business and its major source of revenue.

Q1. Paper 1 is on technology and its role in modern society. What interests you about this subject? How might you make it relevant to your own life?

Google’s total assets have steadily increased dating back from 2008 to 2012. Some key figures to point out in their assets are the slow growth between the second half of 2008

Google is a global technology leader, focused on improving the ways people connect with information. Through innovations in web search and advertising, Google is now a top Internet destination and possesses one of the most recognized brands in the world. Available to anyone with an Internet connection, Google maintains the world’s largest online index of web sites and other content.

Google is a company that was conceptualized in a dorm room by two Stanford University college students in 1996 (Arnold, 2005, p. 1) and has morphed into one of the greatest technological powerhouses in operation today. What began as merely a means to analyze and categorize Web sites according to their relevance has developed into a vast library of widely utilized resources, including email servicing, calendaring, instant messaging and photo editing, just to reference a few. Recent statistics collected by SearchEngineWatch.com reflects that of the 10 billion searches performed within the United States during the month of February, 2008, an impressive 5.9 billion of them were executed by Google (Burns, 2008). Rated as Fortune Magazine’s

Google is the most successful information technology and web search company in the world. It was founded in 1998 by two Stanford Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company name, Google, is a play on the word “googol” which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose this name to reflect the large amount of information on the web. The two created this search engine so that people can find anything on the web all in one place. The company’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Now, the company is far more than a search engine website, it has grown to be a substantial collection of products and services that are

In 1998, Stanford University graduates Larry Page and Sergey Brin combined their ingenuity and built a search engine called “BackRub” that evolved into what is now known as Google. Google, with over 150 domains, now functions as a search engine that offers many different products and services including web applications, advertising, sports scores, stock quotes, headlines, addresses, videos, etc. Google’s focus is “to provide useful and relevant information to the millions of people around the world as they rely on us (Google) to provide the answers they are seeking.”

Google’s strategy was to expand its reach into new international markets. In 2000, Google’s new search index that included a large collection of international websites was released, which acknowledged Google’s plan to expand into new international markets. Google’s revenue was increasing more because of its international income. Because of Google’s rapid rise and its dominance, there were concerns in several

Net Profit Margin- The net profit margin of 18.34 percent for 2008 indicates that 18.34 cents of net income was generated for each dollar of sales. The significant increase of 7.83 percent, from 2007’s 10.51 percent, yielded an additional $1.84 billion in profit on the company’s $23.52 billion in revenue.