The search engine giant is also, without any doubt, the online advertising giant, and that is not something that is going to change anytime soon. But after years of exponential growth, it seems that the rate at which its advertising revenues increase begins to slow down, and if in 2014 the growth was 19.1%, and in 2015 it was 15%, this year will be the first in which Google falls in single-digit growth figures, according to eMarketer data .
Thus, it is expected that in 2016 Google’s revenue will increase by 9%, reaching a total of 53,000 million dollars worldwide. In other words, a not inconsiderable figure, and which will still account for 30.9% of all online advertising revenue for the year. It must be taken into account that the company that is in second place, Facebook, will account for “only” 12% of the total. Google’s relevance, unsurprisingly, is even higher if you only take into account revenue from search ads, where it achieves 55.2% of all total revenue.
Mobile revenue is also driving Google’s growth a lot, although growth figures in this area are also far from those of past years. Thus, in 2014 there was an 84.3% increase in mobile advertising revenues, but this year they will barely reach half: 40.3%. And it is expected that the figures will continue to decrease, in 2017 a growth of 24.3% is expected and in 2018, only 13.3% (which will continue to be, yes, a rate almost twice as fast as the general one).
It must be made very clear that no company can grow exponentially to infinity, and that doubling revenues becomes more difficult as the numbers grow. That is, slowing growth, in this case, is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong, although it probably serves as a warning to Google to seek new strategies that propel the company to speeds of yesteryear.