kent escalate: Google tops $1,000 per share: The Mountain View juggernaut keeps growing

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Google tops $1,000 per share: The Mountain View juggernaut keeps growing

Google

Third-quarter earnings show Wall Street pleased with Google's continued growth

Google’s third-quarter results were published on Thursday, and I had a chance to look into the results this morning. Some of the key financial figures were already covered in Thursday's brief post on this, so I’d like to focus on what I thought was interesting out of the conference call.

As the headline suggests, Google’s growth remains very strong. It posted $14.9 billion in total revenue, including the Motorola segment, which still loses a couple hundred million dollars per quarter. But the ex-Motorola revenue numbers (called the Google segment) are up huge. Specifically, the business is up 21 percent year over year. (For the sticklers, this number is on a constant currency basis, so it ignores FX effects, and I think it’s a better reflection of real growth.)

There’s nothing too surprising in the financials, aside from the impressive revenue growth. A good revenue quarter and rising operating margins mean solid overall profit, which has Wall Street excited. Remember that stocks tend to move based on short-term results (and short-term thinking), so none of this is particularly due to the strength of Android, or Chromebooks, or Google Play revenue — despite their importance in the grand scheme of things.