Deutsche Bank Reiterates Buy Rating, $970 PT on Google on Market Leader Position

In a report published Friday, Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler reiterated the Buy rating and $970.00 price target on

. In the report, Deutsche Bank noted, “Google's position in the local space is second to none. The company has all the assets in place to dominate the category, including several across our two primary drivers: mobile and ability to close the loop. In mobile, Google's footprint is unmatched with over 1B users globally, the vast majority of which have maps and other Google products, and over 1B Android smartphone activations to date. Maps alone has over 1k engineers and 8 years of history blazing the trail in the space, highlighted by last year's Apple-Google fiasco. On the merchant side, Google's base of advertisers (8m+ active AdWords campaigns) large and small are unmatched, and the company is in a position to entice more spend via mobile using its new Enhanced Campaigns platform. In short, local is one of the underappreciated strengths for Google, and this report highlights their winning positioning.” Google closed on Thursday at $879.56.