A Barclays Capital analyst, Douglas Anmuth, has announced today that he believes Google’s revenue will be about the same for Q4 as it was in Q3.
Anmuth says that there are indications that the search environment has deteriorated, “perhaps materially,” so far in the fourth quarter. He now sees Q4 revenue of $4.05 billion, flat with Q3, down from $4.18 billion previously, and below the Street consensus at $4.31 billion. He sees profits for the quarter of $4.81 a share now, down from $4.93, and below the Street at $5.17. For the full year, he now sees $19.20, down from $19.32. And for 2009, he now expects EPS of $20.74, down from $21.70, well below the Street at $22.67. He now sees top-line revenue growth for the company in 2009 up 13.2%, down from 18.5% previously.
The data he is using seems to be from IAC and Infospace along with talking with Search Engine Marketers. I’m not sure how much stock I’d put into data from IAC or Infospace - comparing their numbers to Google’s would be the same as comparing Yahoo’s to Google’s - they don’t match up. On the SEM side, even if SEMs had a worse than expected October (even though with the growth of Search, it’s difficult to compare Oct 2008 to Oct 2007 to Oct 2006…etc.) Finally, it’s even more difficult to make predictions about Q4 due to most of Q4 volume and revenue starting on November 28th and ending somewhere around December 20th or 22nd.
Maybe I’m just having high hopes for Google, but I know where I put my dollars and I’ve also seen that that percentage has been increasing more and more. I also think that profit numbers won’t be including the entire amount of cost cutting Google has recently been doing.
Still, I’m merely speculating while I’m hoping that Mr. Anmuth is using solid data that is more solid.
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