Google is world's No.1 media company

INVESTORS have made stock market darling Google the most highly valued media company in the world, with the online search giant overtaking Time Warner in just 10 months of trading as a public company.

Google's share price rose another $2.18, or 0.75%, on Nasdaq to close last night at $293.12 (£160.30), an all-time high, with Wall Street analysts saying it could run up to as high as $350 a share.

The company made its stock market debut last August at $85 a share amid concerns that it was overvalued. The increase would have already turned $1,000 into nearly $3,500 for the typical US investors. Foreigners, including Britons, were excluded from the share offer.

At the current price, the stakes of co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, worth some $3bn each at listing, are now worth more than $10bn apiece.

Google's market cap of more than $80bn makes it more valuable than Time Warner at $78.1bn and far outstrips media groups Viacom and Walt Disney, each of which are worth about $55bn.

Rival online search company Yahoo has a market cap of $53 million. However, Google's sales last year totalled just $3.2bn while Time Warner's revenue was $42bn.