Google Expects Ad Market to Bloom

MARCH 1, 2011 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By SCOTT MORRISON
The online display-advertising market could top $100 billion over the next several years and represents "a pretty enormous opportunity" for Google Inc., an executive at the Internet search giant said Monday.

Neal Mohan, Google's vice president for product management, said the company has some 1,000 engineers around the world working to eliminate complexity and challenges from the Internet display advertising market, an effort that will prompt more advertisers to spend more of their budgets online.

"We really believe the overall market is at a tipping point," Mr. Mohan said during a question-and-answer session at the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.

Mr. Mohan, who is responsible for Google's display advertising products, noted the global online display ad market is currently estimated at about $20 billion to $25 billion. He didn't provide a specific timeframe for his $100 billion forecast.

The Mountain View, Calif., company last October said its display -advertising business hit a $2.5 billion annualized revenue run rate in the third quarter. It also said that its YouTube video site is monetizing more than two billion views per week.

Those comments marked the first time Google provided details about the financial performance of its display advertising business and were aimed at quelling Wall Street concerns about the company's aggressive investments. Mr. Mohan did not provide an update to those estimates.

Mr. Mohan declined to comment on YouTube's profitability, but noted that Google continued to innovate with new ways to monetize the video site, including new "cost per view" ads that are generating "lots of excitement" among advertisers.

Write to Scott Morrison at scott.morrison@dowjones.com