Google Tumbles After Missing Across The Board
With Google parent Alphabet closing at all time highs ahead of it earnings, expectations were clearly both high, and priced to perfection. Too much perfection in fact, because unlike many of its peers, the company reported Q1 results which missed across the board.
Here are the highlights:
- Q1 revenue ex-TAC $29.48 billion, missing the estimate of $30.04 billion
- Q1 EPS $9.50, Exp. $10.17
- Q1 paid clicks on Google properties +39% vs. +66% q/q
- Q1 cost-per-click on Google properties -19% vs. -29.0% q/q
- Q1 operating margin 18%, vs 21% Q/Q
The immediate comparison made by analysts is one with Facebook which beat revenue across the board, prompting some to wonder if the broader ad business is slowing down, or if the company has conceded even more advertising market share to Facebook (and Amazon).
The topline was disappointing across the board, with 1Q Google advertising revenue $30.72 billion sliding from $32.64 billion q/q; total Google properties revenues of $25.68 billion dropped in Q1 vs. $27.02 billion q/q; Google other revenue also dropped in the quarter to $5.45 billion vs. $6.49 billion.
Just as concerning has been Google's rising expenses, and in Q1 the company's traffic acquisition costs (TAC), the amount Google pays out to websites and mobile partners, rose to $6.87 billion for the quarter.
The flipside is that after CapEx soared toward the end of 2018, Alphabet did manage to rein it in during the quarter. As a result, overall CapEx fell to $4.6 billion, from $7.3 billion last year.
Even that however, was not enough, and since the stock was - as noted above - priced beyond perfection, it is tumbling after hours, and was down as much as 5%.
Wow, bad news for #Google!