Google shares top $1,000 after strong earnings

Google shares have topped $1,000 (£617)
for the first time, jumping 13.8% on Friday
after the company reported better-than-
expected earnings.
Shares in the online giant closed 122 points up
at $1,011.4, and have risen 42% since the
start of 2013.
Friday's share price rise followed the company
posting a 36% jump in net profits to $2.97bn
for the July-to-September period on Thursday.
Google's revenues also beat forecasts with a
12% rise year-on-year.
"We are closing in on our goal of a beautiful,
simple, and intuitive experience regardless of
your device," Google's chief Larry Page said in
a conference call with analysts.
The strong earnings report also helped other
online companies, with Facebook shares
adding 4.4% to a new high of more than $55.
Amazon rose 3.4%.
Google's market value is about $334bn, which
is still well below Apple's $461bn.
Google was floated in August 2004 at $85 a
share, giving the company a market value at
the time of $23bn.
The company reported its quarterly earnings
on Thursday after US markets had closed.
Google said that paid-for clicks increased by a
quarter during the July-to-September period,
from a year earlier, the highest rate of growth
in the past year.
This offset an 8% fall in average cost-per-click,
the price advertisers pay Google when
consumers click on their ads.
"We view solid paid clicks growth to be a good
indicator of demand, driven by the continued
shift to mobile," JP Morgan analysts said in a
note.
Video ads
Several brokers have raised their share price
target for Google on the back of the
company's new initiatives to attract
advertisers.
In February, the company launched a service
to help advertisers market through a mix of
smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.
And analysts believe there is still significant
potential to generate revenues from its video-
streaming website YouTube.
YouTube-branded video-ads surged more than
75% in the quarter from a year earlier, with
40% of traffic now coming from mobile
devices.
"We estimate that Google's key YouTube asset
generated approximately $4bn in revenue in
2012, positioning Google extremely well for
the strong growth in video advertising," RBC
Capital Markets analysts wrote in a note.
Analysts at Jefferies said Google is best
positioned to benefit from mobile devices with
one billion activations of its Android system.
Google sells applications and content through
its Google Play store.