Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) 03 (Aug 24 - Dec 27)

[winston]

Google’s Money-Printing Machine Can Be Easily Dismantled

A judge’s finding that the Alphabet unit has a monopoly over digital advertising has an obvious and effective remedy.

By Dave Lee

The majority of Google’s ad revenue comes from ads that appear alongside its own properties, like Search, Gmail and YouTube.

In 2024, revenue from its ad network segment, the part at issue in the case, was $30.4 billion — 11% of Google’s total ad revenue.

Source: Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... aretheview

[winston]

vested

Google's bad year just got worse

by Hamza Shaban

For the second time in a year, a federal court has found that Google (GOOG, GOOGL) broke the law by abusing its market power.

But a forced restructuring and legal troubles are only part of Google’s challenges.

The company is also coming off a rough quarter when it fell short on cloud computing revenue, fanning lingering worries about its AI business.

Its stock is down 20% in 2025 and has lost about 2% over the last year.

CEO Sundar Pichai is aiming for his company’s Gemini chatbot to be used by 500 million people by the end of the year. As of Thursday, ChatGPT was the most downloaded free app on iPhones and on Google Play, while Gemini was No. 26 and 14 on those platforms, respectively.

Alphabet has dramatically expanded its capital expenditures for the year ahead, upping a previous estimate of roughly $58 billion to a planned $75 billion.

Businesses often pare back ad spending during lean times to protect core operations.

The company's March announcement to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for $32 billion highlighted Google's ambitions to become a more formidable cloud business, chasing Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft.

‌Source: Yahoo Finance

[winston]

vested

Google says will buy back US$70 billion in shares, posts earnings beat

Alphabet beat quarterly revenue estimates, benefiting from steady growth in its digital advertising business, which helped offset muted growth at its cloud computing unit.

Search saw continued strong growth, boosted by the engagement we are seeing with features such as AI (artificial intelligence) Overviews, which now has 1.5 billion users per month.

Revenue from Google’s mainstay ad business, which makes up about 75 per cent of its overall revenue, rose 8.5 per cent to US$66.89 billion in the quarter.

Google Cloud reported a 28 per cent rise in revenue to US$12.26 billion, slowing from the 30.1 per cent growth reported in the previous quarter.

Source: Reuters

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compan ... nings-beat

[behappyalways]

Alphabet Surges After Easily Beating Estimates, New $70 Billion Stock Buyback
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/alpha ... ck-buyback

[behappyalways]

How $GOOGL makes money
https://x.com/Mayhem4Markets/status/1915730198584033406

[winston]

vested

Google shares plunge after Apple executive’s court testimony

Google’s search traffic on Apple devices declined last month for the first time in over two decades.

Google was losing ground to AI alternatives like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Apple might soon offer AI alternatives as default search options on its devices, heightening concerns that Google’s advertising revenue could face serious threats from AI competitors.

Source: AFP

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compan ... -testimony

[winston]

Alphabet Inc (GOOGL US / GOOG US)

Recommendation : BUY
Fair Value : USD 210.00

KNEE-JERK REACTION TO APPLE’S TESTIMONY

• Large share price reaction overnight on the back of comments by Apple’s executive during the trial against Alphabet

• Investor concerns are likely centered around upcoming search entrants and potential loss of search momentum

• We believe concerns are valid, but overblown as:
(i) commercial query behaviour unlikely to swing away from Google materially in the near term;
(ii) Safari could be seeing a share shift, rather than Google Search seeing fading search volumes; and
(iii) Apple’s portrayal of Google being less-than-dominant is understandable in the current context of the Apple-Alphabet financial arrangement – Reiterate Buy rating with fair value of USD210

Alphabet dominates the online search market, with Google capturing over 90% of the global share and over 80% of the US share.

We expect Google to maintain its leadership position in the search space.

Alphabet operates various segments such as Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets.

The Google Services segment includes a range of products and services such as advertisements (ads), Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube.

The Google Cloud segment consists of Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Workspace, and other enterprise services.

Within its Google Cloud Platform, the company offers solutions such as cybersecurity, databases, analytics, and AI offerings, including their AI infrastructure, Vertex AI platform, and Duet AI for Google Cloud.

As for Google Workspace, it comprises cloud-based communication and collaboration tools for enterprises, including calendar, Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, and other enterprise services.

The Other Bets segment focuses on selling healthcare-related services and internet services.

Source: OCBC

[winston]

vested

Alphabet shares take US$138b blow as search warnings blare

By Jeran Wittenstein & Ryan Vlastelica

Apple is exploring adding AI services to its web browser for which Google now pays an estimated US$20 billion (RM85.94 billion) a year to be the default search engine.

Potentially more worrisome: searches on Apple’s Safari fell for the first time last month.

Alphabet said in a subsequent blog post that search queries continue to rise, including those coming from Apple users.

Alphabet shares were priced at 15 times profits projected over the next 12 months, compared with an average of 21 times over the past decade. Microsoft is priced at 30 times projected profits, compared with an average of 26.

Alphabet has about 89.7% of worldwide market share for search engines. That compares with 92.9% share in January 2023, just after ChatGPT’s release.

Current estimates calling for 2025 net income of US$115 billion could be overly optimistic.

Source: Bloomberg

https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/754725

[behappyalways]

Google To Pay $1.375 Billion In Texas Data Privacy Settlement
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/googl ... settlement

[winston]

vested

Google’s Chrome Worth Up to $20 Billion If Judge Orders Sale

By Leah Nylen and Josh Sisco

Chrome would be worth “at least $15-$20 billion, given it has over 3 billion monthly active users.

The Chrome browser controls about 61% of the market in the US.

Source: Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... h-monopoly