Alphabet: Ukraine war causes lower growth

Alphabet: Ukraine war causes lower growth

San Francisco, 4/27 .2022

Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell 2% in premarket trading after the company reported slower-than-expected revenue growth.

The cause, according to CFO Ruth Porat: the Ukraine war negatively impacted YouTube ad sales compared to the rest of Google.

Alphabet’s Q1 revenue was up 23% year-over-year. That was the slowest growth since 2020. YouTube generated $6.9 billion in ad revenue, slightly more than the same period last year, but growth was lower than earlier in the pandemic.

Search and cloud showed strong growth for the quarter „as digital transformation continues,“ CEO Sundar Pichai said. He pointed out that investment in YouTube Shorts was 4x higher than a year ago. The short video sharing platform has now reached 30 billion daily views.

Google’s „other revenue,“ including hardware, apps and subscriptions, was $6.8 billion, below analysts‘ estimates of $7.3 billion.

Alphabet also announced that its board has authorized $70 billion in share buybacks.