Internet search engine giant Google may become a $30 billion dollar company after it offers to go public.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, Google estimated a price range of $108 to $135 per share for the initial public offering (IPO). It would sell 24.6 million shares.

Google, which runs the world's most-used Internet search engine, said Monday that its long-awaited initial public stock sale would raise as much as $3.3 billion and value the company at as much as $36 billion. The company has asked for the ticker symbol "GOOG" in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The filing revealed that in the first six months of 2004, the company earned $143 million, 54 cents per share, on revenue of $1.35 billion, compared to the $58.0 million profits, 23 cents per share in the corresponding period of the previous year on revenues of $560 million.

Source: Shanghai Daily News/Xinhua