Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Google more signs of Trouble

"Overview of comScore Search data This report gives investors a monthly snapshot of internet search trends focusing on the 5 largest sites. We issue this report on a monthly basis, focusing on the same data points. We examine U.S.-only paid-search and world-wide search data as provided by comScore.
U.S. Sponsored Click Data for February Google's sponsored clicks were down 3% m/m, up 45% y/y, and 6% q/q. Yahoo's were up 4% m/m, up 25% y/y, and 4% q/q. MSN's were down 5% m/m, up 95% y/y, and 14% q/q. AOL's were down 4% m/m, down 38% y/y, and down 10% q/q. Ask's were down 6% m/m, up 3% y/y, and down 7% q/q.
World-Wide qSearch Data for February Google's total searches were up 50% y/y, 2% m/m, and 10% q/q. Yahoo's were up 34% y/y, 1% m/m, and 8% q/q. MSN's were up 19% y/y, 3% m/m, and 1% q/q. AOL's were down 35% y/y, -2% m/m, and -14% q/q. Ask's were down 4% y/y, flat m/m, and up 1% q/q.
Key Points For U.S. sponsored clicks, GOOG showed 45% y/y growth vs. 54% y/y in Jan and 62% in Dec (2nd consecutive m/m decline, but was +6% q/q), while YHOO's grew 23% y/y in Feb vs. 23% in Jan and 28% in Dec. YHOO's click through rate increased 43bps m/m (Panama went live 2/5). GOOG's coverage ratio decreased 118bps m/m to 47.5% although the % of searches w/ a sponsored ad and a click was 27% vs. 22% y/y.
Bottom Line If one were to trade on this news (and we do NOT advise doing so because we think this data is only directionally accurate), it was not a good month of data for Google. Sponsored clicks were down for the second consecutive month and year-over-year growth rates are decelerating at a faster pace than expected."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Why not reveal your net gain or loss over the last two years on shorting Google?