Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

On the downside, effective tax rate is down to 11%. That's concerning because the EU is very unhappy about the whole "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich."

Numbers:

- Alphabet 1Q EPS $13.33, Est. $9.300

- free cash flow for the first quarter of $4.34 billion.

- 1Q Google Other Rev. $4.35B

- 1Q Rev. Ex-TAC $24.9B, Est. $24.3B

- Capital expense for Google more than triples: up from $2.4 billion to $7.7 billion year-on-year. That probably reflects spending on hardware, including the Nest division.

- Porat says that CapEx was "almost completely split" between paying for machines ("compute capacity") and paying for real estate.

- Without Nest, the "Other Bets" operating loss narrowed to $571 million from $703 million a year earlier.

- The company has discussed making annual stock grants to executives and other employees in the first quarter, and it's not clear yet how much that dragged down Alphabet's operating profit.

Ads

- 1Q Paid Clicks +55%

- Our first new glimpse at Google's network business: impressions on Networks sites stayed flat for the quarter, but the cost-per-impression went up 18 percent. Translation: Google is getting steady growth out of its display business.

Misc:

- added nearly 5,000 employees in the quarter, to 85,050 as of March 31. That works out to more than 50 new hires a day in a 90-day quarter.

- Porat also says the company has been working on the GDPR compliance for 18 months. "We've changed our policy as needed. We are also providing users with strong user controls and privacy settings and privacy check ups," she told Bloomberg Television.

- Porat says Waymo has achieved 5 million miles of driving on city streets.

Absolutely obscene. Literally their entire Net Income increase from $5.4b to $9.4b is due to a tax cut from 20%. We will be paying for this Republican tax policy for the rest of our lives.