Google Parent Alphabet Misses Quarterly Revenue estimates

(Reuters) The alphabet missed Wall Street stimates for quarterly revenue on Tuesday, in a sign that the Google parent got a hit from increased competition in the digital advertising market and a slowdown in its cloud computing business.

The tech giant’s shares fell 8% in expanded trade. The alphabet has achieved approx. 9% so far this year.

Google’s Cloud business announced a 30% increase in revenue to $ 11.96 billion in the fourth quarter, slowing down from the 35% increase in the September quarters. Analysts expected an increase of 32.3% to $ 12.16 billion, according to data prepared by LSEG.

The soft cloud numbers come, even when Google has built AI features within its cloud computing platform. Larger Sky-Rival Microsoft also reported weaker than expected growth in its Azure Cloud platform last week.

Revenue rose 12% to $ 96.47 billion in the fourth quarter compared to the average analyst estimate of $ 96.56 billion, according to data prepared by LSEG.

The company reported a profit of $ 2.15 per Share and beat estimates of $ 2.13 per Stock.

(Reporting Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru and Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Editing Shounak Dasgupta)