On November 16, 2023, Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke with Emily Chang at the APEC CEO Summit held at Moscone Center West in San Francisco.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Google Parent letter Third-quarter earnings are scheduled to be released after the market close on Tuesday.
Analysts expected the following, according to an average estimate compiled by London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG):
- Earnings per share: $1.85
- income: $86.3 billion
Wall Street is also paying attention to several other numbers from the report:
- YouTube ad revenue: $8.89 billion, according to StreetAccount
- Google Cloud revenue: $10.88 billion, according to StreetAccount
- Traffic Acquisition Cost (TAC): $13.53 billion, according to StreetAccount
Alphabet’s third quarter has been filled with external and internal restructuring, including at its highest levels and most important businesses.
Earlier this month, the company replaced Prabhakar Raghavan, who had been the company’s head of search and advertising since 2018, with Nick Fox. C-suite executive at Google Assistant. In addition, the team developing Gemini applications, including the company’s direct-to-consumer AI products, will join Google DeepMind and be led by Demis Hassabis.
The moves come as Google continues to reorganize its team to move faster in the artificial intelligence arms race, where it faces increasing competition from players such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The company also faced multiple antitrust lawsuits during the quarter related to its search and advertising businesses. In August, the company faced a guilty verdict from a U.S. federal judge who ruled that Google had an illegal monopoly in search, the first antitrust decision against a technology company in decades.
In early October, the U.S. Department of Justice made recommendations on Google’s search engine business practices, indicating that it was considering breaking up the tech giant as an antitrust remedy, specifically forcing the company to take action on its Chrome, Android and Google Play app store businesses.
Additionally, the Justice Department proposed limiting or banning default agreements and “other revenue sharing arrangements related to search and search-related products.” This will include search ranking agreements between Google and Apple iPhones and Samsung devices. These deals cost the company billions of dollars a year but position Google as the default search engine for these products.
With the legal process moving slowly, it could be years before the company is forced to make any changes to its operations.
In a separate antitrust case in early October, a U.S. judge issued a permanent injunction forcing the company to provide an alternative to the Google Play Store for downloading apps on Android phones. However, the judge later Granted to Google Suspension of the ban.
In September, Google was back in court, facing off against federal prosecutors for the second time, this time in the Justice Department’s antitrust trial targeting Google’s ad-tech business. Closing arguments in the trial will be held on November 25.
Outside of the courts, Google also made a number of product announcements this quarter.
In August, the company announced a new Android software update and its latest line of Pixel smartphones powered by Google’s Gemini AI assistant. The company doesn’t make a lot of money from its hardware business, but the latest Android features could help Google bring in new revenue through its Gemini AI subscription program.