14 DAY TRIAL // Google held its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, wrapping up a rather tumultuous year. The company weathered the economic crisis much better than most companies its size and has actually seen growth in the last year. Shareholders were mostly pleased with the performance.
Google is satisfied with its core business, advertising – its main revenue generator. CEO Eric Schmidt believes that display advertising will be Google’s next big business, though the company hasn’t had the best of luck so far. And with Facebook moving fast and becoming a major player in the display ad market, Google has its work cut out against it.
Google has some of the most popular and trafficked properties online, but most aren’t well suited for display ads. Its ad network fares better, but Google hasn’t managed to crack this nut, not for lack of trying.
On the mobile front, things are looking a lot better. Android is exploding and growing at a huge pace. Google says 65,000 Android-powered devices are sold each day and Schmidt believes Android is well on its way to becoming one of the two most popular mobile platforms. The company’s ‘secret,’ he believes, is its open approach. Reports are saying that Android is already outselling the iPhone, but in terms of smartphone market share, both platforms are still far behind BlackBerry.
Its other mobile interests, specifically the AdMob acquisition Google is working on, aren’t doing that well. It looks like regulators may have set out to ‘get’ Google and may block the sale of the mobile advertising company. Google has pledged to pay $750 million for AdMob. It also addressed one rumor about the deal that had been spreading lately saying that it agreed to a $700-million kill fee on it. Schmidt didn’t confirm the rumor, but said he didn’t expect to pay anything, since he was confident the deal would go through.