Google’s earnings reports showed that the company’s mobile division continues to contribute to revenue. Mobile search may make Google as much as $2.5 billion this year, but analysts have questioned where the portable version of the search engine will fall in the company’s revenue stream long-term.
“Overall search activity is shifting toward mobile devices, but the preponderance of search activity on mobile devices is not monetizable,” Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, told reporters. “I am worried that Google doesn’t have the same strategic position in an untethered world that it does in a world dominated by desktops and laptops.”
Advertisers aren’t willing to pay as much for ads on mobile devices as they are for ads on desktop and laptop computers. The option of making coupons available on mobile devices has created an alternative to click ads, but whether these will provide steady revenue for Google is unclear.
“It’s still very early in the mobile business,” Larry Page, Google’s CEO, told reporters. “And you see that it’s an incredibly exciting business. There’s a lot of activity. We’ve done well by having a long-term view on that.”
Read more at The New York Times.
