Web Globalization and The Bottom Line

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What’s the ROI of Web globalization you ask?

Let’s take a look at two recent earnings announcements from Google and eBay, two major bellweathers of the virtual global economy.

Let’s begin with Google, whose main revenue engine Adwords has been localized into more than 40 languages.

According to Google’s earnings announcement today, “Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $1.71 billion, representing 47% of total revenues in the first quarter of 2007, compared to 42% in the first quarter of 2006 and 44% in the fourth quarter of 2006.”

It is possible that Google will be generating more money from outside the US this time next year than from within the US. The only wild cards are exchange rates and the fact that Google is still growing like crazy in the US.

And then there is eBay, which supports 13 languages across 27 localized Web sites. eBay announced this week that the proportion of international revenues to US revenues now stands at an even 50/50. This time next year, international revenues will most certainly have surpassed domestic revenues.

And, according to BusinessWeek, JPMorgan Securities Inc. analyst Imran Khan add: “We continue to expect PayPal’s international business will drive strong growth in 2007 as the company recently rolled out its service to include additional currencies and countries,” wrote Khan. “We believe this expansion will help facilitate increased cross-border trade as well as increased PayPal penetration in the company’s current international footprint.”

And keep in mind here that both eBay and Google have struggled in China. These global revenues trends are the result of countries other than China, which bodes well for both companies if/when they do hit it big in this market.

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John Yunker

John Yunker

John is co-founder of Byte Level Research and author of Think Outside the Country as well as 19 editions of The Web Globalization Report Card.
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