As Google’s share price flirted with $300, the world’s largest search engine shot to top spot as the most valuable media company, eclipsing Time Warner.
Just 10 months since Google so controversially listed using an auction share sales method, its stock price hit an all-time high of $293 this week, giving it a market capitalisation of $80-billion.
Several years after the dot bomb burst the value of Internet stocks, ironically an Internet search engine is now worth more the combined assets of publishing and media giant Time Warner (valued at $78,1-billion), Walt Disney ($55-billion) and Viacom ($55-billion).
But the fairytale listing has many analysts worried. There are concerns Google is just another bubble, given how its $85 share debut in August has quadrupled but its revenue is only $3,2-billion.
Time Warner’s revenue, by comparison, was $42-billion, while Yahoo! reported total revenue of nearly $1,2-billion for the first quarter of this year.
Google’s surpassing Time Warner is equally remarkable because it owns America Online (AOL), the United States’s largest Internet service provider, which has been seen as the gold standard for Net companies. This was until the merger with Time Warner, which AOL bought for $106-billion just before the bubble burst and diluted Time Warner stock.
Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates is one of many to display scepticism about Google’s continuing stock surge, but many could be forgiven for sensing his agenda. “Google is still perfect, the bubble is floating and they can do everything,” he said last month. “You should buy their stock at any price. We had a 10-year period just like that.”
Gates was revealing Microsoft’s answer to Google’s Desktop Search, which lets you search your computer with the same simple interface as Google’s website.