CNN/Money One for credit card only hard offer form at $9.95 One for risk-free form at $14.95 w/ $9.95 upsell  
News > Technology
graphic
Google slips on weaker outlook
Shares fall over 3% after the search engine says increased competition could weigh on sales.
November 18, 2004: 3:59 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Shares of Google Inc. fell more than 3 percent Thursday after the Web search giant warned that revenue growth rates would be unsustainable in the future.

The company, which has seen share prices more than double since its August initial public offering, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that, while it believes revenue will continue to grow, the growth rate will not keep accelerating as it has been.

Shares of Google (Research) fell $5.68, or 3.3 percent, to $166.82 in late trading on the Nasdaq.

"Our revenue growth rate has generally declined, and we expect it will continue to do so as a result of increasing competition and the inevitable decline in growth rates as our revenues increase to higher levels," said the company's filing.

"Consequently, we believe that our revenue growth rate from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2004 may not be sustainable into the fourth quarter of this year and in future periods."

Despite the impact that the filing had on the stock, analysts had already been forecasting a slower growth rate for Google's revenue.

The company reported $503.2 million in revenue after traffic acquisition costs, which is the way that analysts measure sales from different search engines. That was up nearly 19 percent from the second quarter. Google posted only an 11 percent sequential gain in that measure of revenue in the second quarter.

But according to earnings tracker First Call, analysts are looking for revenue after traffic acquisition costs of $570.9 million, or only a 13.5 percent gain compared to the third quarter, followed by sequential increases of 8.8 percent in the first quarter 2005 and 3.5 percent in the second quarter. So, slowing revenue growth had already been built into most analysts' models.

Of course, analysts were also less bullish on the stock than investors have been since the IPO. First Call said it has a 12-month target price for the stock of only $145, or about 16 percent below Wednesday's close.

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Google
Corporate Finance
IPOs

The company's filing also said it was offering to repurchase 23.4 million shares of stocks that had been held by current and former employees and contractors, as well as 5.2 million unexercised options.

That share repurchase offer is more than the 19.6 million shares it sold in its IPO. At current market prices, the company will not have to repurchase any of the shares, since it is offering only the price paid for the shares, between 30 cents and $80 a share.

But the offer stays open through December, so if the shares were to have a sharp fall in the next six weeks, the company could face some additional share repurchases.  Top of page




  More on TECHNOLOGY
Honda teams up with GM on self-driving cars
The internet industry is suing California over its net neutrality law
Bumble to expand to India with the help of actress Priyanka Chopra
  TODAY'S TOP STORIES
7 things to know before the bell
SoftBank and Toyota want driverless cars to change the world
Aston Martin falls 5% in its London IPO




graphic graphic

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.