On Google’s Future. Part 1

From 2005 through 2012 Google site revenues1 have risen at a rate consistent  with the growth in global Internet population excluding China2. The Internet population and Google.com revenues for the period 2005-2012 are shown in the following graph.

Screen Shot 2014-03-13 at 3-13-3.17.02 PM

The correlation is shown in the following graph:

Screen Shot 2014-03-13 at 3-13-3.17.21 PM

Taking into account costs and expenses, on a per-user basis profitability per user (assuming all non-Chinese internet users are Google users) is shown below:

Screen Shot 2014-03-13 at 3-13-3.17.14 PM

The simple conclusion is that Google earns approximately $1.2 per user per quarter (net income is the blue area above). This figure is relatively constant with a slight increase (~20%) over 3 years.

If the company does not alter its business model then the future potential of the business could be measured as a function of Internet (ex. China) population growth.

How hard can that be?

The next post will answer this question.

  1. Google revenues are reported as “Google.com”, “Network”, “Motorola” and “Other”. For this analysis I am including only the Google.com revenues []
  2. Internet population is calculated as a combination of penetration as reported by the ITU and population data from the World Bank []