Goldman adds Google to Americas conviction buy list

 

Goldman Sachs added Google to its Americas conviction buy list and said revenue growth at the search market leader will re-accelerate to a high-teens rate or better over the next four quarters, as it expects search spending in Europe to rise.

Goldman analysts, who rate the stock at "buy" raised their 6-month target price on the stock to $560 from $510, as it sees a return potential of 26 percent for the stock.

Google's international and U.S. revenue may recover simultaneously given results from other Internet companies, which showed surprisingly buoyant Europe revenue trends as the adoption of online activities such as travel bookings and e-commerce in Europe catches up with US, Goldman said. "We previously worried that Europe suffering the economic downturn later than the U.S. could result in Europe enjoying an upturn later too, slowing Google's revenue recovery versus more-US-centric peers, analysts, including James Mitchell, wrote in a note to clients.

But healthy online travel bookings and e-commerce activity in Europe should spill over to more advertising on search Web sites and thus on Google in the next several quarters, as advertisers respond to consumers making more purchases, the analysts said.

Google's display revenue will also see a boost due in part to improved monetization at its popular video sharing site YouTube and "distraction" at rival Yahoo! Inc, the analysts said. They estimate Google's display revenue will grow 40 percent in 2010 and add 2 basis points to overall revenue growth.

Shares of the company closed at $443.97 Wednesday on Nasdaq.