Here’s another company that looks to be resistant to the recession and may even be benefiting from it: Netflix beat high expectations for the final quarter of 2008, and predicts a gangbusters 2009.
Search ads were supposed to thrive even in a recession, but there are signs that even Google has been getting roughed up: Note its efforts to make money while actually cutting costs. We’ll get a better sense of how things stand today after 4 p.m. EST, when the company turns in its fourth-quarter report card.
Congrats on the new job, Carol! But now, you get to report that your new company has posted a decline in its core advertising business for the first time in its history.
I vow to provide some upbeat news here sooner than later. But until then, here’s yet another downbeat data point, from Citibank’s Mark Mahaney: He predicts that search advertising, which has been the one dependable growth business during the econalypse, may be ready to start dropping, too. Which means that Google’s Q1 revenue may actually be smaller than its Q4 revenue.
Yes, Cyber Monday sales were better than expected–up a not-terrible 15 percent. But Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney has gone ahead and cut his estimates for the world’s leading e-commerce company anyway: He thinks Amazon’s sales will grow seven percent this quarter, down from his earlier estimate of 16 percent growth.
Even more Wall Street analysts are cutting their estimates for Google, making the reasonable argument that if the world’s economy stinks, that might have some impact on the world’s biggest media company. To be more specific: Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney says that big online advertisers Amazon, eBay, Expedia and Priceline will all be making big cuts in their Web ad budgets this quarter.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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