Where is Google heading as its PC search business growth stalls?

Google 's financials have remained largely the same over the past few quarters . Desktop search remains its largest business unit, and while it hasn't changed much, it still generates a lot of revenue.

Google released its Q4 earnings report on Thursday. Its revenue fell short of market expectations as users gradually migrated from desktops to smartphones and tablets . On the other hand, Facebook attracted more mobile users, making its platform more attractive to advertisers.

Google said sales, excluding traffic acquisition costs, were $14.48 billion, and net income per share was $6.88, missing analysts' expectations of $14.7 billion in revenue and $7.12 in earnings per share.

Google CFO Patrick Pichette said at an analyst conference that the company encountered "some real challenges" in Q4, but still emphasized the strength of its core search business.

The company's shares fell more than 2% in after-hours trading before rebounding following Pichette's summary. As of 2:30 p.m. Pacific time, the company's shares were trading at $521.25 and closed at $510.66.

Desktop search and advertising businesses contribute 90% of Google's total revenue, and analysts and investors are worried that the trend of users turning to mobile devices will have an adverse impact on it. Q4 revenue that fell short of expectations also shows that CEO Larry Page is powerless to do anything about it.

Google has a huge share of the global digital advertising market, with a market share of more than 31% last year, followed by Facebook, which only has an 8% market share. The huge market share is the basis of Google's success.

One of the problems Google faces comes from mobile advertising. According to eMarketer, Google's share of the mobile advertising market fell from 46% in 2013 to 40% in 2014. During this period, Facebook's share increased slightly by 2 percentage points to 18% in 2014. Facebook said on Wednesday that the company's total advertising revenue was $3.85 billion, and mobile advertising revenue accounted for nearly 70%.

Google doesn’t break out revenue by client, but growth in paid clicks is slowing, growing just 14% last year, compared with 31% in 2014. Revenue per click also continues to decline, down 3% from the year before.

Page handed over most of the management responsibilities to Sundar Pichai in October last year as he focused on the company's future as the company tries to move beyond search.

Google invested in a ton of new projects last year — self-driving cars, smart contact lenses, Wi-Fi balloons, and more. All of these projects came from the secretive Google X lab, which also created the Google Play app store, which contributed 11% of the company's revenue in Q4.

Google Glass also comes from this department. Due to the ongoing public opinion and many other issues, Google recently announced that it would no longer sell the prototype version of the product, but said it would continue to retain the project and hand it over to Tony Fadell, the father of Apple iPod and co-founder of Nest.

Google's ambitions in the communications sector are also growing, with the ultimate goal of expanding its user base and thus boosting revenue. Earlier this month, the company invested $1 billion in Elon Musk's SpaceX to help it launch an array of micro-communication satellites to provide Internet services. Google also launched its own Fiber broadband project in 18 new cities earlier this week, and the company plans to launch this service in more cities.

Google is reportedly interested in becoming a wireless network operator, and is in talks with Sprint and T-Mobile, the third and fourth largest mobile network operators in the United States, respectively.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.