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Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

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Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#171

Post by tapatio »

sharadov wrote: post #100
darkwizard42 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the same thing I feel when I read Meta's earnings. I continue to see growth in usage of their core properties but I don't think my entire circle touches Facebook or even Instagram nearly as much. Whatsapp certainly isn't driving those ad dollars so it truly is remarkable how disconnected my demographic (loosely using my here) is from the overall world usage.

You have no idea of Whatsapp's marketshare in India - all small businesses use Whatsapp for all communication and even take payments. That's a 1.4B population.

Same in all of South America.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#172

Post by e_y_ »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #159
wskinner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you as a shareholder receive a dividend of X% of the share price, you owe tax on it. But if the company buys back stock and as a result the share price increases by X%, you do not owe tax on that unrealized gain until you choose to sell your stock. That’s good for investors.

Also, dividends are taxed as ordinary income whereas stock buybacks lead to capital gains, which almost always have a lower tax rate.

Qualified dividends are taxed at the same rate as long term capital gains, although the rules for what qualifies can be tricky (special one-time dividends in particular).

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#173

Post by jnwatson »

formercoder wrote: post #58
endisneigh wrote: post #4

Fascinating that they’re issuing a dividend. Can’t find anything better to do to drive growth?

I’m a Googler who doesn’t do anything remotely close to setting capital return policy. Just remember Alphabet has been buying back 10s of billions for a while. Dividends are just a different capital return mechanism.

Importantly, dividends devalue issued unvested RSUs.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#174

Post by Mg6yDfjp5U »

refulgentis wrote: post #164
VirusNewbie wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does it regularly as they pay out so much RSUs they want to keep the same number of shares on the market. You can look and see them historically doing this

A side effect is avoiding dilution from RSU grants. Poster is correct: that is not the reason for them. We can confirm this. Compare RSUs granted/year -- $150M -- to buybacks this quarter -- $70B. ~ 700x as much.

Where are you getting that $150M spent on RSU grants per year from? Unless I'm missing it, I don't see that in the report and it seems way too low.

Let's say the average engineer gets $100k/year in RSUs. (I would guess the actual number is higher.) That would only cover 1500 engineers.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#175

Post by ajross »

mangosteenjuice wrote: post #155
ajross wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Meta literally represent alternative advertising products.

So do Android and iOS. They're still the primary indicators of the strength of the smartphone market. You probably can't imagine a world without advertisements or smartphones, but that's the point from the post you're responding to that you're missing. If the advertising industry looks healthy, it helps everyone by keeping investors satisfied and share prices up, even if it's a ruse. It is possible for smartphones an…

Arguably true, but that's a rather different point than "there is no alternative". There are arguments to be made about market "health" and the relative sizes of the largest players, but what the upthread comment was doing was resorting to "anti trust" shorthand that clearly doesn't apply. There may be problems with this market, but lack of competition isn't one of them.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#176

Post by refulgentis »

Mg6yDfjp5U wrote: post #174
refulgentis wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A side effect is avoiding dilution from RSU grants. Poster is correct: that is not the reason for them. We can confirm this. Compare RSUs granted/year -- $150M -- to buybacks this quarter -- $70B. ~ 700x as much.

Where are you getting that $150M spent on RSU grants per year from? Unless I'm missing it, I don't see that in the report and it seems way too low. Let's say the average engineer gets $100k/year in RSUs. (I would guess the actual number is higher.) That would only cover 1500 engineers.

You're right, it's too low, see link at bottom: my guess is the $2B number, inclusive of all granted but not vested, is the correct #.

In general people way overestimate the # of SWEs at Google relative to the employee #, even within Google.

I don't wanna get too cute in public but some fermi estimates including, say, number of employees per engineer at a 100 person startup, and a jaundiced yet correct view of how much is outsourced at a company with a lot of grunt level SWE work common to every company, bridges the multiplier from there.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1364742/000156459021....

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#177

Post by sangnoir »

marcosdumay wrote: post #131
sharadov wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea of Whatsapp's marketshare in India - all small businesses use Whatsapp for all communication and even take payments. That's a 1.4B population.

How does whatsapp make money? (At all, and how much?) It's not possible it makes as much as the main Meta properties. It has no ads on anything people use.

I suspect WhatsApp has a better shot at being the "everything app" compared to Twitter.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#178

Post by sangnoir »

ethbr1 wrote: post #82
sahila wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately advertisers want a return on their spend and it's a closely watched metric for marketers. Them continuing to spend is indicative that there's growing value in ads, ie bots/ai agents cannot be the reason for their growth. You could argue fb and particularly twitter are incentivized to include it in their DAU counts but market cares more for revenue for large companies.

"There is no alternative" I wouldn't put it past Google/Meta coopting corporate advertisers. Everyone makes everyone look good, by stating the best possible numbers.

SMEs spend a lot on advertising, in aggregate. These smaller businesses are more sensitive to lowered conversation rates and will bail early - Meta took a huge hit in earnings in the aftermath of Apple's privacy changes due to poor conversions. Advertisers didn't keep pumping money in - they stopped campaigns.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#179

Post by uejfiweun »

dmckinno wrote: post #9

I thought that this earnings announcement would be the first one where we'd see some impact from competitive knowledge engines, e.g. Perplexity, You.com, ChatGPT + Bing, etc., but Google still grew search $6B/15%. This is impressive both because it's hard to keep such a big business growing at that rate and because essentially everyone in my social circle has moved on from going to Google first for information. I gue…

I think Google still beats the various AI tools for any use case where you need to find a real world thing or decide between real world things. Which are also the primary types of queries that drive advertising revenue for Google. Yeah, ChatGPT has replaced searching Google for stack overflow answers, but it's not like you were clicking on ads when looking for programming answers anyway.

Re: Google Earning Q1 2024 [pdf]

#180

Post by w34t »

metadat wrote: post #151
wslh wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The volume of search ads I see increased dramatically since one year ago. Just adding a data point to the discussion.

Yes, and this strategy is only good for one or two pumps, because the advertisers will eventually notice the lower engagement rate per dollar of spend and reduce their commitment accordingly. I'm curious what 2025 will look like for Elgoog. There are only so many desperate death throw spin tweaks available before the opportunities for indirection are exhausted.

But Google and Meta can easily manufacture views for whoever pays the most by showing those ads more.

And then every other advertiser has compete with that price.

I mean if 2 big movies are being released this weekend and one producer is willing to spend 5 million on ads then pressure on the other producer goes up to spend 6. Its not that simple or scientific to connect how the movies perform to the ads. Same with politics. One jackass raises 100k to spend on ads then their opponent feels pressure to raise and spend the same or more. There is lot of fomo driving this machine.

On top of it Corps love to say the people are buying what they want. But google results show corps are spending a hell of a lot influence who buys what. So are people driving real demand or ad spend driving it?

Everyone is competing furiously for limited Attention. How do you get noticed in a room called the internet where everyone is trying to capture attention simultaneously. It feels like in such an environment of attention scarcity Google and Facebook are like the Oil Cartel. They can control the price.

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