![]() ![]() "Google is going public because it's profitable. "There's always a tremendous amount of buzz with Internet IPOs but I don't think we'll go back to people getting excited about all Internet stocks like in the late '90s," said Peter Thiel, managing member with hedge fund firm Clarium Capital. ![]() But one hedge fund manager said he does not think Google's filing will cause a flood of new Internet and technology companies. Many tech investors have been hoping that an IPO filing from Google will lead to another tech boom period. Worldwide, Google had an even bigger lead over Yahoo!, with 43 percent of searches, compared to 31 percent for Yahoo! Yahoo! was second with 30 percent of searches. "The competition between Google and Yahoo! and MSN will certainly intensify," Rashtchy, "They are already heavily competing to make sure that each gets their share of the search business."Īccording to research firm comScore Networks, Google sites had nearly 35 percent of Web searches conducted in the United States in February, making it the market share leader. Now that Google has filed to go public, the search business could become even more intense, said Safa Rashtchy, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. Google has said it intends to sell ads that will be tied to keywords in e-mails, which has raised some privacy concerns. ![]() The company also is testing a controversial free e-mail service called Gmail, which provides far more storage space than most other Web-based e-mail offerings. Google recently launched a comparison shopping Web site called Froogle and a test version of a local search engine. (Time Warner is the parent company of CNN/Money.) IPO should increase competition in searchĪnd during the past few months, Google has stepped up its efforts to compete against large Internet companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft's MSN, Time Warner's AOL and. The company has become not just a tech juggernaut but a popular culture phenomenon as well, with people using the verb "Googled" to describe searching for information on the site. (For more on the founders' stakes in Google and their pay, click here).Įric Schmidt, the former CEO of Novell and chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems, joined Google as its chairman in March 2001 and was named CEO later that year. Google, founded in 1998 by former Stanford University students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, has quickly become one of the most successful Internet companies, thanks to search technology that many experts say is superior to offerings from rivals. Google's core business of selling search-based advertising, which allows companies to purchase ads tied to specific keyword searches, is one of the most lucrative and rapidly growing markets in the tech sector. Mark Mahaney, an Internet analyst with American Technology Research, said Google's numbers were incredibly strong, noting that its sales grew in the first quarter at a higher rate than Yahoo! ( YHOO: Research, Estimates) and eBay ( EBAY: Research, Estimates). (For more of the financial details revealed in the filing, click here.) Net income was $64 million, up 148 percent from the first quarter of 2003. Google also revealed that has been profitable since 2001.įor the first quarter of 2004, Google reported sales of $389.6 million, an increase of 118 percent from a year ago. ![]() Sales rose 177 percent from a year ago although earnings increased by just 6 percent. In the filing, Google said that it generated revenues of $961.9 million in 2003 and reported a net profit of $106.5 million. Wall Street has been eagerly anticipating a filing from Google so investors could finally get a glimpse into the company's finances. The company's IPO filing has been rumored for the better part of a year and recent speculation has created a buzz about Internet stocks not seen since online auctioneer eBay went public in September 1998. Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston were named as the lead underwriters for the deal. The company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it expects to raise as much as $2.7 billion from the offering, which it will conduct in the unusual format of an online auction in a bid to make its shares more widely available. Google files for its IPO, the most highly anticipated stock sale in the era. 1 Internet search engine, finally filed for its initial public stock offering Thursday and promised to maintain its long-term focus even though it will soon face the intense scrutiny of Wall Street. Popular search engine company files for its eagerly anticipated initial public offering.īy Paul R. ![]()
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