Tue 04 February 2020:
(REUTERS) Google-parent Alphabet’s worst fourth-quarter revenue growth since 2015 sent shares down nearly 5 percent on Monday, overshadowing the disclosure for the first time of YouTube advertising revenue.
Revenue from Google’s cloud service rose 53 percent to $2.6 billion in the quarter and advertising on YouTube rose 31 percent to $4.7 billion.
In addition, YouTube generated about $750 million in subscription and other non-advertising revenue, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said.
Google through its namesake search engine as well as properties such as YouTube has been the web’s biggest draw for advertisers for a decade, enabling it last month to become the fourth listed company to top $1 trillion in market capitalization.
But new concerns have emerged among investors about whether its dominance will last as U.S. antitrust regulators investigate Google and as Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc continue to grow their ads businesses globally.
Google has blamed foreign exchange rates and one-time product changes for recent lapses from the 20 percent revenue growth investors had grown accustomed to from the company.
Overall sales in the fourth quarter were $46.08 billion, up 17 percent, compared with an average estimate of $46.94 billion among financial analysts tracked by Refinitiv.
Google ad sales in the holiday shopping quarter were $37.93 billion, up 16.7 percent from the same period last year, while Google’s “other” revenue bucket including app store purchases and cloud computing deals rose 21.6 percent to $7.88 billion.
Shares of the company fell about 4.66 percent in extended trading to $1,413.28.
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