Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) reported its second quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, beating expectations on the top and bottom lines on the strength of its advertising and cloud businesses. But the company said capital expenditures will climb to $85 billion. Google previously projected $75 billion.
Alphabet stock fell more than 2% following the announcement.
“AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement.
“Search delivered double-digit revenue growth, and our new features, like AI Overviews and AI Mode, are performing well. We continue to see strong performance in YouTube as well as subscriptions offerings. And Cloud had strong growth in revenues, backlog and profitability. Its annual revenue run-rate is now more than $50 billion.”
For the quarter, Google saw adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $2.31 on revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs (TAC) of $81.2 billion. Analysts were anticipating Adj. EPS of $2.17 on revenue ex-TAC of $79.6 billion. The company posted revenue of $71.3 billion during the same period last year.
Advertising revenue came in at $71.3 billion versus expectations of $69.6 billion. Search revenue topped out at $54.1 billion versus an anticipated $52.7 billion. YouTube ad revenue was $9.8 billion versus expectations of $9.5 billion.
Google Cloud Platform revenue hit $13.6 billion. Analysts were looking for $13.1 billion.
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Google, like its other Big Tech peers, continues to splash huge amounts of cash on its AI buildout. This year, the company is expected to drop $75 billion expanding its AI capabilities, including on massive data centers running on both its own home-grown chips and Nvidia’s processors.
Google is also facing potentially devastating consequences from a judge’s decision that held it liable for antitrust violations in search. Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia is expected to issue a ruling on “remedies” that follows the Justice Department’s victory against the company sometime next month.
Judge Mehta held that Google violated antitrust law by boxing out rivals in the online search engine and online search text markets. To restore competition, he could order Google to refrain from longstanding exclusivity deals with the likes of Apple (AAPL) that set Google Search as the default option on the company’s smartphones.
Mehta could also force Google to sell off its Chrome browser, the most popular web browser in the world. That would put a dent in Google’s all-important search business, a dangerous proposition for the company.
