Research archive for GOOG

The company formally known as Google, Alphabet, reported their numbers for the fourth quarter and full year after the market closed last evening. Google still exists, it is just a business division. For the time being, the other businesses (aptly named "other bets") which includes a whole host of interesting opportunities, is unprofitable and contributes next to nothing on a relative basis to revenues.

Google announced a new phone yesterday, it is the "Pixel". From the website, Made by Google, the intro is titled Meet Pixel, Phone by Google. There was also the release of a home connected device, a speaker that is powered with the "Google assist" software. It is activated by saying, "OK Google". Remember that to activate Siri, you simply say, "Hey Siri". When I do this at my desk, it seems to activate Michael's (next to me) phone. Good voice projection I guess. And then some streaming devices, "coming soon", premium TV to Audio streaming. The connected home is here, it will take a while to integrate it all and my sense is that we will all bumble through until we learn. The internet of things is being unveiled in front of our eyes here, with the Amazon Echo, Apple HomeKit and Google Home automation devices. And Virtual Reality headsets, don't forget those.

Alphabet reported numbers last evening, this is for the second quarter to June 2016. The half year too, something that we are a little more accustomed to around these parts. Revenues for the quarter grew 21 percent over the comparable quarter in 2015, and 6 percent better than the previous quarter. Yowsers, that is some pretty exceptional growth. In constant currencies, as we still live in a world of relative Dollar strength to everything else, revenues increased 25 percent relative to the quarter this time last year. For comparisons sake to Facebook, who reported yesterday, Alphabet clocked revenues of 21.5 billion Dollars, more than three times that of Facebook.

Last week we had Alphabet Announcing First Quarter 2016 Results. This is only the second time that the results have been released under the name Alphabet. Before that it was known as Google.

Alphabet, the company formally known as Google reported numbers after the market close last evening. I am pretty sure that you have read the headlines already, Google overtakes Apple as the most valuable company in the world is what they read. And of course that is true, as of the close last evening Apple had a market capitalisation of 539 billion Dollars (the trillion Dollar curse), whilst Alphabet, and this is knowing your ABC's, was at 517 billion Dollars. In the aftermarket however, Google is up just over four percent, which means that it is touch and go as far as to which company is bigger. Of course this is always on paper, the stock, Google that is (we will continue to use it interchangeably, Google and Alphabet), is in unchartered territory. And I remember not so long ago that the chattering classes were referring to Google as a one trick pony, they were losing their mojo, and, and, and .....

I am an Alphabet, not a Googler. Surely not at the headquarters, people who work for Google, will still work for Google and are by extension Googlers. Not Alphabeters. The reason for the renaming and reorganisation of the business was essentially to take focus away from the business being a one pony trick, purely advertising and to focus on all of their other businesses including robotics, life sciences business, just a separation and reporting differently, that is all.

There was an interesting announcement from Google last evening, after the market closed: Google Announces Plans for New Operating Structure. The holding company is Alphabet, the website is abc.xyz. That is pretty cool, and the design is clean, G is for Google. Larry Page will be running Alphabet, Sergey Brin will be his partner, not much changes there. Sundar Pichai will run Google, he is highly regarded and got tweets of encouragement from the likes of Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, Tim Cook, the Apple CEO and Google Chair, Eric Schmidt. He comes with a top pedigree, is only 43 years old, born in Chennai, I am just guessing that he is a huge MS Dhoni fan.

Google has been a serious laggard, in terms of their price performance relative to the market. As I speak to many people about companies it is human nature for us to look at share price performance and translate that to internal company dynamics and quite quickly come to the conclusion that Google "is not doing that well", we are ALL guilty of that. Don't beat yourself up, we all do it. Revenue growth of 11 percent year over year (when measured against Q2 last year), serious currency headwinds in there, constant currency revenue growth was 18 percent. 17.7 billion Dollars in revenues for the quarter is pretty impressive, currency impact was a whopping 1.6 billion Dollars, with the benefit of modest hedging that was reduced to 1.1 billion Dollars. GAAP diluted EPS clocked 4.88 on GAAP net income of 3.351 billion Dollars. 9 out of every 10 Dollars are still from advertising, check out the revenue breakdown:

YouTube turned 10 unofficially yesterday. On the 23rd of April 2005, the first ever post titled "Me at the Zoo" was uploaded by Jawed Karim, the co-founder of YouTube. The clip itself is terrible. It is shocking actually. I guess the company has been a success beyond their wildest dreams. Check this out, the first and only ever video, as per below the link.

Oh! That is interesting, the fact that Google have managed to drag a Wall Street type across the country from New York to the Googleplex, which is in Santa Clara County for any of you that have ever been close to that part of the world. Well, do you know the way to San Jose? Ruth Porat better know the way, she has landed the job of CFO at Google, leaving the same job at Morgan Stanley. Check out the Google release: Ruth Porat to Join Google as Chief Financial Officer. The only thing that sticks out for me is that when Porat joined Morgan Stanley in 1987 (an interesting year for equity markets) Larry Page and Sergey Brin were 14. They were going through their geeky years at high school, we all remember those.

Google. You can use it as a verb. As in the "old" days when I asked my pops what something is or was, he said, go look in the dictionary or the encyclopaedia. Now days you can use the company name as a verb, in other words, go Google it! The company turns 17 this year, in September, the founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are still at the helm, the ex CEO and now chairman, Eric Schmidt is still large and in charge at the business. Recently Google has had some slippage, some questioning that they only have the one business. Whilst looking at their business revenues, it becomes clear that it is all about internet and search.

When Larry met Sergey in 1995 at Stanford University and by 1996 they had built their first search engine. The name Google is a play on the word googol which is a mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros (nerd alert). Today Google is a regular in everyones vocabulary. It has an answer for everything and more importantly it has the answer that you were most likely looking for.

Google released their second quarter numbers post the bell yesterday, they were very good, in my opinion. You can download the .pdf: Google Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2014 Results and Management Change. Revenues for the quarter of 16 billion Dollars (an increase of 22 percent), operating income was 4.26 billion Dollars, 27 percent of revenues. Nice. On a non GAAP EPS, excluding stock-based compensation (SBC) expense (what the hell?) that number was 6.08 Dollars.

Google are having a proper go at their competitors, currently there is the Google I/O developers conference on the go at a place called the Moscone Center, a 65 thousand square meter centre in San Francisco. Day 2 of the conference ended yesterday. If you want to watch the Google I/O 2014 - Keynote, of course you can do so on YouTube.

One of our core holdings in the US, Google has announced that they are buy video monitoring and security company Dropcam Inc for $555 million. The actual buyer of the company is Google's subsidiary Nest, the "smart appliance" division. The long term goal is to have all your house appliances controlled by a cell phone running the Android software.