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Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

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Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#111

Post by czhiddy »

newman314 wrote: post #69

People were losing their minds over the fact that iPhone shipments slightly declined. If you look at the year over year growth (excluding the massive bump for iPhone 6), it would show that AAPL is still ahead of the growth curve. See https://imgur.com/vO0kPEy * Apple's quarterly revenue: $75.9bil * Apple's quarterly profit: $18.4bil * Google's quarterly revenue: $21.3bil * Google's quarterly profit: $6.8bil In sheer…

If you add in the same comparison to Facebook's numbers, the valuations look even more puzzling (using the most recent quarter):

* Apple's quarterly revenue: $75.9b * Apple's quarterly profit: $18.4b * Apple's market cap: $538.7b * Apple's P/E ratio: 10.24

* Google's quarterly revenue: $21.3b * Google's quarterly profit: $6.8b * Google's market cap: 517.6b (pre-earnings) * Google's P/E ratio: 35.37 (pre-earnings)

* Facebook's quarterly revenue: $5.84b * Facebook's quarterly profit: $2.56b * Facebook's market cap: $319b * Facebook's P/E ratio: 89.22

Do investors really think Facebook can grow at the pace a 89.22 P/E ratio suggests? They're quickly reaching the point where everyone in the world who can get a Facebook account already has one. They're pushing hard to spread to poorer areas by offering Internet access, but how much marginal revenue/profit can a poor rural farmer add? If Facebook somehow magically increased their numbers tenfold at the same growth rate, which would make their numbers roughly match Apple's, the current P/E ratio would make them a 3.19 trillion dollar company.

People knock Apple for relying too heavily on iPhone revenue, but Google gets a pass because their even more unbalance reliance on search has a "bigger moat"? Their core product, ads, is something most people despise and put up with, not something they seek out. Let's hope that some of their moonshots actually pan out.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#112

Post by lazaroclapp »

mwfunk wrote: post #97
jonknee wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's obvious that is where they are going.

Calling someone an "X company" means that they make their money from X. There are aspects of AI in targeted advertising, but not enough to call them an AI company rather than an advertising company. It doesn't really matter where they're going- that's what they aspire to be, not what they are. If you judge companies based on their aspirations, you end up judging them based on their most positive and idealistic versio…

How about "Alphabet/Google is trying to position itself as an AI company" instead of "is an AI company". That direction is still important to explain why it is valued like it is: investors are betting that it has good chances of succeeding in becoming an AI company.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#113

Post by scholia »

HappyTypist wrote: post #84
jfuhrman wrote: post #25

Well, abusing their search dominance among other things like making ads indistinguishable from organic results and paid placement on verticals like shopping/hotels etc. was eventually going to pay out. More details on how Google manipulated search rankings manually to make more money: From http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-skewed-search-results... >A previously undisclosed report by staffers at the Federal Trade…

Google's purpose is to give users the most relevant results. No Google algorithm update goes through without users liking it; it doesn't matter how much profitability it increases.

Except, for example, when Google decides to provide inferior results (ie inferior as determined by Google search), which may still result in anti-trust action in Europe

http://focusontheuser.eu/

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#114

Post by dragonwriter »

hyperbovine wrote: post #65
dangoor wrote: post #50

Interesting that Apple's net profits last quarter was greater than Alphabet's revenue.

How much Google product did you buy last quarter...

More than the $0 I did of Apple product. Google Express, Google Play Music (and/or Youtube Red, depending on how you look at it), a Chromecast. And a (branded, not AOSP) Android phone, which I think Google ultimately sees something for, though I'm not sure.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#115

Post by Mikeb85 »

xyzzy4 wrote: post #30
Mikeb85 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. I doubt there's much upside, but generally mega caps don't have much volatility either...

I wouldn't count on that. Apple seems to have a lot of volatility lately.

Compared to what?

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#116

Post by tyingq »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #101
tyingq wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are getting better, every single year, over more than a decade, in a way that click growth outpaces traffic growth. Despite circumstances that would counter the effort. It seems unlikely it's just targeting, without spilling over into something that's bad for consumers.

> They are getting better, every single year, over more than a decade, in a way that click growth outpaces traffic growth. That they're getting better at it is why click growth outpaces traffic growth. If they stayed the same at it then click growth would equal traffic growth. > It seems unlikely it's just targeting, without spilling over into something that's bad for consumers. It could be one or the other or both.…

>> Care to present any evidence

They certainly do things today that they did not do 5 years ago. Like specific query results where everything above the fold on desktop is an ad.

I personally do not think that's good for consumers. I suspect, though, that you disagree.

On your other point, they are getting better every year as measured by a YoY comparison...not just plain growth. Double-digit percentage YoY improvement. That's hard to do.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#117

Post by rimantas »

shimon wrote: post #110
jonesb6 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree that comparing Google and apple is silly. But calling Google an "artificial intelligence" company is just feeding another buzzword into the fire.

Google's flagship product is a box that you can type words into, and get relevant texts/references/facts in response. It seems like a textbook example of AI.

AI with quickly advancing dementia.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#118

Post by metaphorm »

dynofuz wrote: post #99
metaphorm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your concerns raise an interesting point but I would like to know what, specifically, is "something that's bad for consumers." There might be something to dig into here. I'd like to learn more. Can you expand on your previous point?

Previously google used to organically list products in their "froogle" search. now all product listings are ads. Therefore it's not surfacing content from the entire web which almost always has products for cheaper prices.

are there no organic listings at all? or is it just that there are now way more paid listings so the first page is entirely paid placements? thats a pretty big difference.

I recall that when froogle/google-shopping first launched they were just filling in content from search results because they didn't have very much direct engagement by vendors. maybe that's changed now so the search results were just scaled back because not necessary.

I dunno. I'm willing to accept non-nefarious explanations for this. That doesn't mean it isn't on the whole better for google and their paid advertisers. Whether or not that also means its worse for consumers is an open question.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#119

Post by drewrv »

shimon wrote: post #110
jonesb6 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree that comparing Google and apple is silly. But calling Google an "artificial intelligence" company is just feeding another buzzword into the fire.

Google's flagship product is a box that you can type words into, and get relevant texts/references/facts in response. It seems like a textbook example of AI.

AI is whatever hasn't been done yet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn....

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#120

Post by coldcode »

pinaceae wrote: post #100
npalli wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

70% of the revenue and (maybe) 80% of the profit of Apple comes from a single product - the iPhone. Apple themselves have given lower guidance going forward. There is a limit to the number of people buying iPhone at huge margins every year. The total units might continue to grow but not at the current margins and not as frequently. Hard to be bullish unless some other product takes off.

unlike Google, where practically 100% comes from one single product, which is ads. all "other bets" are actually losing money, per their data.

People love Apple's products (for the most part). People hate ads (pretty much everyone). So this makes no sense to me at all that Google is worth more than Apple. If you imagine the future, no one really knows what each will do with all the stuff they are building, so saying Google is worth more than Apple in the future seems silly.
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