The shares of Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) reached the $1,000 mark for the first time since its initial public offering (IPO) as analyst and investors are confident that the search engine giant’s revenues from mobile and video advertising will continue to grow.
Google’s stock ended the trading session with 13.80% gain to $1,011.41 per share, and it continues to trade higher after hours on Friday. Over the past 52-week range, the stock price of the search engine giant climbed from $636 per share to its highest level today at $1,015.46 per share. The company first offered its stock at $85 a share in 2004.
Investors’ confidence in Google strengthened after the company reported better-than-expected financial results for the third quarter. The company delivered $10.74 earnings per share on $14.89 billion revenue, higher than the $10.34 earnings per share on $14.79 billion revenue consensus estimate of Wall Street analysts.
Martin Pyykkonen, analyst at Wedge Partners Corp. said that Google has a proven business model, and he believes that it is “great growth stock.” On the other hand, Stifel Nicolaus internet analyst, Jordan Rohan commented that the financial performance of the search engine giant is “good enough” and some of the “blemishes are overlooked today.” He added, “I have no problem with the stock showing some life.”
Investors disregard the decline of Google’s key business metric called cost-per-click, down by 4% from the second quarter or 8% year-over-year because it was compensated by an 8% increase in paid clicks or 26% year-over-year. Paid clicks refer to the number of times users click on advertisements and generate revenue.
In a note to investors, Scott Devitt, analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote, “Accelerating ad volume growth of 26% year-over-year implies that rather than struggling with a mobile transition, Google is benefiting from increased screen fragmentation.”
Credit Suisse analysts Stephen Ju noted in his report that the re-acceleration of paid clicks was the highlight of the financial performance of Google for the third quarter. According to him, growth normalized following a period of tougher comps. He said, “We continue to view Google as one of the best-positioned in our space to benefit from the proliferation of connected devices and the ensuing lift in engagement.”
Based on data compiled by Bloomberg, Majority of analysts (35) covering stock are projecting that Google’s share will continue to trade higher and they recommending a buy rating. Thirteen analysts have a hold rating for the stock. Currently, Google has a market capitalization of $336.82 billion.
A recent study from eMarketer indicated that Google will take 53.17% of the $16.65 billion global mobile advertising market this year.
