$94, er, $106 Billion

That’s a very large market cap. Today is a quiet posting day, for various reasons, but I did find the time to step into a CNBC studio and mull why Google seems to be pulling away from everyone else in search related earnings. My really, brilliant, over the top observation? Google is the leader in search. Since it has more searches than anyone else….it has more earnings. It also seems to be better at monetizing its searches, though exactly how is anyone’s guess…

Also, notably, Google is pulling in more and more searches on its own google.com site, which of course are the most profitable kind of searches there are. No pesky publishers to whom you must pay TAC. Just pure marginy goodness. Now do you understand why they are pushing the Toolbar?! (Besides that long term idea of knowing loads about you so they can personalize search, of course…)

A few tidbits from the earnings worth mentioning, many from Comscore data that Street analysts are quoting:

Average revenue per search (yes, any kind of search, not just paid): 12 cents. It was around a dime in late 04.

Avg. revenue per searcher: $7

Avg. revenue per sponsored click: 62 cents.

Estimated profits for Google in 06: Roughly $4 billion (Bear Stearns) (which is about the same as their forecasted annual revenues this year, FWIW)

Revenue growth of Google year to year: 96%

Of Yahoo: 42%

Estimated revenue growth for next year for Google (Bear): 61%

For the average of eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon: 29%

Price target for GOOG (Piper): $445

Number of shares Battelle owns (For all of you who keep asking): 0

Also: Number of employees added in the past year: Nearly 2000

Amount spent on capex, 05 (estimate): $800 million

Amount MSFT is estimated to spend: $810 million

Hummmm….