Google is spending more on expanding into new markets than Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Yahoo combined, according to a new report.
According to a report in Bloomberg, the web giant has a $56.5bn cash pool to buy into new markets as growth in Web advertising slows, including last weeks purchase of Nest Labs to expand into the much-hyped ‘Internet of Things’.
Bloomberg reprts that Google has spent more than $17 billion in the past two years to purchase hardware, software and advertising-technology companies.
In contrast, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon. and Yahoo!.have spent less than $13 billion in total to buy companies in the same period, based on deals with disclosed prices.
Google’s biggest acquisition was its $12.4 billion deal for Motorola in 2012, which gave the company a smartphone maker along with a portfolio of wireless patents.
In 2013, Google’s cash and equivalents jumped 24% from a year earlier in the third quarter to $56.5bn, while net revenue rose by 5.2 % to $11.9bn.
Despite investement in new markets, Google still gets a huge 84% of sales from Internet ads, even after diversifying into hardware and other areas.
Revenue growth slowed last year and is expected to do so again in 2014 based on analysts’ estimates as more online activity shifts from personal computers to smartphones, tablets and other connected devices. This explains why Google is so keen to expand into other areas as technology- and consumer eyeballs and ad cash- move on.
Read the Bloomberg report here