The Sydney Morning Herald today reported that Google won’t disclose its Australian revenue figures, making it difficult for industry analysts to make accurate estimates about the size of the Aussie search market and its growth rate (all amounts in this post are in Australian dollars):
The search advertising market was estimated to be worth $399 million for the year to June. However, there is industry concern about the accuracy of the figure because Google controls an estimated 80 per cent of the paid search market and will not release its figures.
[PricewaterhouseCooper's] online advertising report for the September quarter is expected tomorrow. Mr Temsamani countered recent guidance from the Internet Advertising Bureau suggesting market growth of 30-40 per cent was more likely for next year than forecasts of continuing market rises of 50-60 per cent. PwC has forecast average annual growth of 25 per cent until 2011.
“We think the online market overall has been growing extremely strongly,” Mr Temsamani said. “We have seen the numbers that have come out earlier this year and the predictions for next year, which are a little lower than the growth numbers that have been touted for 2007. We believe the market is going to grow as fast next year as it did this year across the total market.”
Australian IT notes the search giant’s reticence is aligned with its policy of not revealing market-by-market figures.
This comes just a couple weeks after Australia signed off on the Google-DoubleClick deal, but perhaps folks down under will be placated by Google’s Australian election map (which looks really cool). Taking 2004 filings and growth rates into account, Computer World estimates Google’s Aussie revenues are above $500 million:
Its most recent Australian Securities and Investments Commission filing was made in 2004. That filing revealed that the company’s local online advertising revenue was A$206 million, a figure that was estimated to have grown 108% year-on-year from the previous reporting period.
The equivalent New Zealand filing appears to only contain a fee paid to the local subsidiary for sales and marketing services and so throws no light on overall revenue achieved.
However, if Google has maintained the same Australian growth rate, its revenue from advertising sales would now top A$500 million.
