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Google revenues miss analysts’ predictions as search business continues to slow

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By Nesh Pillay, Reporter

April 23, 2015 | 2 min read

Google’s revenue in the first quarter missed analysts’ predictions, weighed down by the slower than expected growth of its maturing search business.

The quarter’s revenue was $17.26bn, an increase from last year’s $15.42bn in the same time period. However, this was short of the $17.5bn analysts had predicted.

It was a similar story for its advertising business. Paid clicks were down 13 per cent in the period, a 1 per cent drop from a quarter ago and a slump on the projected 14.8 per cent rise.

Despite the creaking performance, Google is still by far the dominant player in search. The media giant’s share of the search market sagged slightly to 54.7 per cent in 2014 from 55.2 per cent the previous year, according to eMarketer. Additionally, Google accrued a 32.42 per cent of all digital ad spending worldwide in 2014, a slight drop from 31.86 per cent in 2013.

Google’s slowing growth is in stark contrast to Facebook, which continues to see advertising revenues grow exponentially thanks chiefly to a strong mobile proposition. Revenue from advertising was $3.32bn in the quarter, up 46 per cent from a year earlier. Facebook gained a 7.93 per cent share of the $145bn billion global digital advertising market in 2014, a rise from 5.81 per cent in 2013, according to eMarketer.

Yesterday, Google announced the details of its new mobile plan.

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