Google shares hit the $1,000 mark on Friday when they rose 13.8% on the day after the company reported strong earnings.
Google shares reached $1,011.4, representing a 42% increase so far this year. On Friday they rose 122 points.
Google shares were sold at $85 each when the company went public in 2004. At that time its market value was $23 billion.
Google reported a 36% rise in net profits to $2.97 billion for the third quarter of 2013.
Google consolidated revenues increased 12% compared to the same period in 2012 ($14.89 billion), beating virtually all forecasts.
A Google press release quoted its CEO Larry Page, who said:
“Google had another strong quarter with $14.9 billion in revenue and great product progress. We are closing in on our goal of a beautiful, simple, and intuitive experience regardless of your device.”
Facebook shares rose 4.4% on strong earnings as did Amazon (3.4% rise).
Google’s market value, at approximately $334 billion, still has a long way to go to reach Apple’s ($461 billion).
Paid clicks and cost-per-click
Paid clicks – increased by 26% compared to Q3 2012, and by 8% compared to Q2 2012. Google said these included Google’s aggregate paid clicks on Google sites and the sites of its Network members.
Cost-per-click – fell by about 8% compared to Q3 2012 and by 4% compared to Q2 2012. These also included Google sites and sites of its Network members.
Even though ad prices continued to fall, that decline was more than offset by significantly more people clicking on the ads.
The BBC quoted a JP Morgan analyst who said “We view solid paid clicks growth to be a good indicator of demand, driven by the continued shift to mobile.”
In February this year Google started its “enhanced campaigns”. Advertisers were forced to buy adverts for tablets and desktop computers together – before they could buy them separately.
Tablet ads are much cheaper than laptop ads. Many advertisers decided to bid just on the cheaper option as a way to reduce the overall cost of a campaign. Whether ads are run on mobile phone, tablets or elsewhere is decided by Google.
While Yahoo stocks have virtually doubled since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO, the company’s advertising revenue continues to under-perform.