Google forecasts growth

Search engine sees 372,000 new ad accounts in 4 years: Google, a company that refuses to make financial forecasts, expects to add 372,000 advertiser accounts over the next four years, according to internal documents obtained by The Chronicle. Everyone agrees that Google is expanding rapidly. The questions are how much and for how long. The internal Google documents obtained by The Chronicle give unusual detail about the matter. They include advertising forecasts that have not been publicly disclosed. Google predicted that the number of advertiser accounts will jump from 280,000 this year to 378,000 in 2005, according to the documents. From 2004 to 2008, the number of accounts is expected to more than double to 652,050. Google expects its advertiser accounts to grow 35 percent between 2004 and 2005, according to the internal documents. However, Google estimates that the growth rate will decline to 15 percent between 2007 and 2008. That’s already happening in the search industry overall. A study by Morgan Stanley showed that ad prices for queries with two or three words, such as “APR credit card,” nearly doubled to $1.84 per click between April 2003 and March.

———————————————-Google’s advertisers

Here is Google’s internal forecast of how many advertiser accounts it will have.

2004 – 280,000 2005 – 378,000 2006 – 472,500 2007 – 567,000 2008 – 652,050