Google Shares May Rise to $1,000, Fund Manager Jacob Predicts

Google Inc. shares may surpass $1,000 over the next year as the world's most popular Internet search engine trounces competitors, said Ryan Jacob, manager of the best-performing technology fund.

The Mountain View, California-based company's stock reached $700 on Oct. 31 after rising to $600 earlier in the month. A price of $1,000 would be a 44 percent increase from yesterday's close.

Google is ``taking share from smaller players and consolidating their lead among larger competitors,'' Jacob, who made Google his second-largest holding in his top-performing Jacob Internet Fund, said in an interview yesterday in Boston. ``I don't think $1,000 price targets are a stretch.''

Apart from dominating the market for Internet search, Google this month said it would create a mobile-phone operating system for handsets sold by Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. The agreement could increase advertising revenue, which accounts for 99 percent of its $10 billion in annual sales.

Google started what it calls the Open Handset Alliance to make free software that will help the phones run applications. Nokia Oyj and Microsoft Corp. have separate phone operating systems that aren't open to developers.
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