READING NOTE · UPDATED 2026
Use the figures as a dated business example
These Google financial results refer to 2007. They are not current revenue, margin or market-share data. The article can still support a discussion about how business performance is described, but any present-day analysis must use the relevant reporting period and original filing. Preserve the old numbers as historical evidence rather than silently updating them.
A practical next step
- Keep the 2007 reporting period attached to every figure.
- State the business question before making a comparison.
- Use a current primary filing for a current financial conclusion.
This 2026 reading note is written by the Durnall editorial team. Richard Durnall’s original text follows below.
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The original words below retain their period and attribution. The reading note above is the current editorial addition.
Source capture · 2013-10-29 ↗Last week Google released their 2007 financial results. The headline numbers go like this…
Revenues :: $US16.5B
Net Income (read Profit) :: $US4.2B
Ouch! I had to try to put that into context so I did a bit of research and if Google was a country it would have the 90th largest economy in the world (based on the World Banks 2006 GDP table) and if I was to stack all that cash up in $100 bills it would be about the same size as the sky scrapers in the city here in Melbourne. It would buy 2,426 Ferrari F430′s (MSRP $US173,079), if you’re that way inclined.
The most interesting thing was this performance was poorly predicted by the ‘top analysts’ at the investment banks. On average they predicted around 15% better performance.
I love the business model behind AdSense and AdWords because it scales so well. I’ve worked with a few companies that have sold advertising online and more often than not they have charged a fixed price. The beauty of the pay per click and impression model is how nicely it scales. Well, it’s certainly got Microsoft’s attention with them launching a $US44.6 bid for Yahoo! This comes shortly after Microsoft beat Google in a bidding war and bought a 1.6% share of FaceBook for $US240M. This values FaceBook at somewhere around $US15B. Why? Well, if the technology can be developed then FaceBook has the potential to be able to deliver exceptionally targeted advertising; something people will pay big bucks for.
It’s going to be really interesting watching the actions of Google, Microsoft, FaceBook and others in 2008. In front of a backdrop of economic mumblings about a potential global recession they are going to fight for the advertising dollar on the online battle field and we’ve all got a front row seat.