Google-Just google it

Google is an American multinational corporation that deals in information technology and cloud based services.In addition, they also develop devices such as phones, cameras and smart home appliances.Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 out of Menlo Park, California.Started as a research project on search algorithms, Google was released publicly in 1999 as a full fledged search engine.They received a lot of praise initially in their BETA runs where Forbes and Salon.com called it way ahead of its time and competitors such as AOL,Go,Excite and MSN.Following this, they planned to sell the brand for 1M$ to the market leader Excite at the time but Excite refused.They then developed their search engine and got contacts to be the default search engine in Apple products.Seeing a cash crunch and a hindrance to develop new technology, Google went public in 2005 at 85$ per share.The most notable finding is the fact that this was the worlds first online only IPO.

Google currently trades at 2700-2800$ with a market cap of 1.8T$.They are the worlds most used search engine with more than 65% of the market share and they process over 5.6B searches per day.Despite the massive scale of operations, this is still a free service and Google earns revenue off data selling when relating to their search engine.They also yield a large sum of advertisements on Youtube and their web pages.They have been trying to drive people towards their premium subscription models but the contribution from the same still remains a mere 10%.

Google has a median price forecast of 3500$ with a high estimate of 3900$ and a low estimate of 3150$.The median represents a 28% increase from the last trading price.All 44 investment analysts suggest a buy and hold strategy for 5 years to maximise earnings from Google shares. The shift to augmented reality technology and systems is a massive opportunity for search engines such as Google.They have also announced a stock split which might allow them to enter the DOW Jones average benefitting retail investors.

Google is a market player in the search engine.Moreover they also own the Android software which has a 80% market share in the global smartphone industry.They have been operating in a duopoly market with Apple and earning constant revenue.As part of the future sustain plan by Google in 2005, they wanted to acquire more than 150 companies to maximise their revenue streams and reduce dependence on their search engine algorithm.This has planned out extremely well for Google as there has been a massive growth in the number of internet and smart phone users.Google makes all complementary services users require with their smartphone.They did try to enter the smartphone market but were not able to create the differentiating factor which is the reason behind their meagre market share.Services such as Google Maps and Google Earth are used by majority of the common public and even have military and government uses.Their cloud and computational services are used by most IT firms and businesses.Google is a company whose services are an integral part of our life whether or not we like it.It is almost impossible for anybody to survive a day in the modern world without using any Google service.The Covid 19 pandemic furthered dependence on the FANG companies.Collaborative tools such as Google Meet,Sheets and Docs also saw a massive increase in market share in the second quarter of 2020. Google is a must have in any portfolio for all types of investors as it is a safe investment with good returns in the short, medium and long term investment horizon.