Image courtesy of 123rf.com

On Tuesday, July 23rd, Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) is scheduled to release Q2 2024 earnings ending June. Year-to-date, GOOGL shares are up 31%, sandwiched between its main competitors, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) (up 19%) and Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) (up 40%). 

For the quarter, average earnings per share estimate is holding at $1.85, down from $1.89 in the first quarter, while the average revenue estimate is projected at $84.21 billion. For comparison, Alphabet ended Q1 with $80.54 billion revenue, up 15% year-over-year. 

Out of that figure, $70.4 billion came from Google Services. In Q1 earnings, the company reported $23.6 billion net income, which is now expected at $23 billion for Q2. 

Although the ad business remains the company’s main revenue generator in its Google Services division, Alphabet has expanded into hardware (Pixel, Nest, Fitbit), autonomous vehicles (Waymo), high speed internet and AI development. 

Given AI’s hype in the last two years, much is expected of Google’s AI integration as the main valuation driver moving forward. But how can Alphabet outpace Microsoft as the first-mover, owing to its partnership with OpenAI and Azure cloud integration?

Alphabet’s Faltering AI Integration

Alphabet’s bottom line relies on the feedback loop between global search engine dominance and ad revenue, at 91.06% vs 58% market share respectively. For comparison, Amazon and Baidu are estimated to have 14% and 15% share of global search advertising revenue respectively, according to Statista Market Insights. 

This enormous network effect gives Alphabet a wide moat status, as a fertile ground to plug in other products and expand the company’s ecosystem of services and apps. However, Google Cloud is ranked third as a cloud infrastructure vendor. At 10% market share, Google Cloud is behind Amazon Web Services (AWS) at 31% and Microsoft Azure at 25% market share. 

This is indicative of Alphabet’s lagging AI posture, as both Microsoft and Amazon have built extensive partnerships to bundle up their cloud services with AI. Moreover, the Gemini launch debacle showcased to investors that Alphabet is heavily ideologically bound, instead of prioritizing accuracy and usefulness to the end-user. 

With that said, there are signs that Alphabet could deepen its moat further. 

Boosting the Cloud Business with Cybersecurity and Google AI

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Alphabet is negotiating the acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz, purportedly worth around $23 billion. Similar to Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware for $69 billion, this would open the door for Google’s stake in the cloud-native security arena. 

Like recently embarrassed CrowdStrike, Wiz offers real-time threat detection, vulnerability analysis, AI-powered automation of tasks and seamless integration into all major cloud service providers. 

If it goes through, Wiz acquisition would boost Alphabet’s Mandiant cybersecurity platform, acquired by Alphabet in September 2022 for around $5.4 billion, currently ranked 23rd at 0.37% market share in the cybersecurity category. 

According to insider sources reported by Android Authority, Alphabet plans to integrate AI even more with the upcoming Google Pixel 9 series in the smartphone arena. The “Google AI” suite of services would include the existing Gemini as built-in AI assistant and Circle to Search feature. 

Three new features of Google AI are purportedly “Add Me” as AI-assisted and automated photo manipulation, “Studio” as all-in-one AI image generator similar to Apple’s Image Playground, and “Screenshots” similar to Microsoft’s controversial Recall feature for upcoming Copilot Plus PCs.

Can Alphabet Tackle the Unreliability Perception?

Investors should take note that Alphabet is notorious for ditching projects and features. Case in point, when the company acquired Fitbit for $2.1 billion in January 2021, the fitness device became superfluous alongside Google Pixel Watch. Moreover, Fitbit Versa 4 and Sense 2 lost third-party app support. 

In other words, it appears that Alphabet used up Fitbit for data collection purposes, then shifted to a new product while abandoning its existing user base. This reflects Alphabet’s wide moat status in which experimentation is prioritized over following through on a product. 

This tendency is so prevalent that a dedicated site called “Google Graveyard” was created, currently listing 295 abandoned projects. Although the company can afford such an approach, it doesn’t inspire confidence with enterprise-grade customers, making AWS and Azure ahead of the cloud game.

Still, the company showed it is catching up in Q1 earnings. Google Cloud generated $9.57 billion revenue, up 28.4% from the year-ago quarter. While Microsoft Cloud generated three times as much, at $31.8 billion, the revenue growth is “only” 23% year-over-year.

GOOGL Price Forecast

Presently priced at $181.44, GOOGL stock is slightly under its 52-week high of $191.75, while 23% above its 52-week average of $147.54 per share.

According to 40 analyst inputs aggregated by Nasdaq, average GOOGL price is $202.89 twelve months ahead. The optimistic ceiling is $240, while the estimated bottom is not that far from the current price, at $170 per share. 

More By This Author: