Sunday, October 22, 2006

Google's growth is slowing dramatically

Few more observations on recent trends in Revenue and Net Margin of google presented in CC slides
First of all I dare to say that they have monetised everything from the existing traffic with diminishing growth and they are desperate to buy new traffic in order to monetise it. The biggest problem here that YouTube traffic is not monetisable straight forward if meaningfully monetisable at all. But few figures: Growth in Google.com is in the slowing trend Q3/05 +20%; Q4/05 +24%; Q1/06 +18%; Q2/06 +10.4%; Q3/06 +13.5%. Share of Network Revenue is declining Q2/05 85%; Q3/05 76.3%; Q4/05 72.8%; Q1/06 71.5%; Q2/06 69.6%; Q3/06 63.8% and growth in Network revenue is slowing even more aggressively: Q3/05 +7%; Q4/05 +18%; Q1/06 +16%; Q2/06 +7.4%; Q3/06 +4% (!) What has happen? Partners has figured out how to monetise traffic without Google? Nobody is growing apart from Google (which is slowing down itself)? Click fraud with better audit available to advertisers is taking its cut from "partners" clicks? We can only speculate here, but trend is established and it must be very disturbing to Google management. Cost of this Network traffic is increasing, if you will proper apply TAC to share of Network Revenue you can see following picture: TAC/NetwRev Q2/05 78.4%; Q3/05 60%; Q4/05 78.7%; Q1/06 77.9%; Q2/06 78.7%; Q3/06 79.6%. So total picture is that growth of Revenue on Google.com is slowing to 12-15%; Growth of Network Revenue is slowing dramatically to single digit figures and its cost TAC pushing 80%. Net Network Revenue was Q1/06 205 mil 15.8% of Rev Google.com; Q2/06 212 mil 14.8%; Q3/06 212 mil (!) 13%. Somebody is playing math here? Do you remember how insurance companies like AIG smoothed their earning with "Partner Deals"? Traffic exchange even more easy to regulate or maybe some of the "Partners" in the "Network" in the Family. But no offence Boys - you are hardly pushing any Law here and clear in your intentions: Selling your shares smooth and fast. All written above went straight into the money: Net margin contracted in Q3 vs Q2 from 29.4% to 27.3%. Should I send it to Google? Or they already have these slides for internal use?

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