Google Stock plummeted Tuesday, losing $30.58 and going down to $362.62. At one time, shares were as low as $338.51.
The stock has now fallen almost $110 from the all-time high in the $470s, and as such hasn’t seen real growth since late October 2005. So much for the stock that seemed like the sure thing.
What pushed the stock down this time was a statement by Google Chief Financial Officer George Reyes warning at a Merrill Lynch investor conference that growth in Google would only be slowing as time went by.
After hailing the results of an 18-month effort to boost advertising revenue, Reyes predicted it will become increasingly difficult for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google to maintain its rapid growth pace.
“Most of what’s left is just organic growth, which means you have to find ways to grow your traffic,” Reyes said. “Clearly, our growth rates are slowing, and you see that each and every quarter.”
Google issued a statement late Tuesday:
George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), participated earlier today in the Merrill Lynch Internet, Advertising, Information, & Education conference. At this conference, Mr. Reyes made remarks regarding, among other things, revenue growth trends and expected sources of revenue growth.
We would like to clarify and provide further information on these statements. As we have stated before, monetization improvements will continue to be a key factor in driving future revenue growth. We still see significant opportunities to improve monetization and intend to continue to focus our efforts in this area.
Moreover, as we have stated in our SEC filings, our revenue growth rate has generally declined over time and we expect that it will continue to do so as a result of the difficulty of maintaining growth rates on a percentage basis as our revenues increase to higher levels.
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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