Alphabet Inc., (NASDAQ:GOOGL) the parent company of the Google search engine, reported quarterly sales that topped Wall Street estimates on strong advertising spending.
Alphabet said its third-quarter revenue amounted to $53.6 billion U.S. Analysts had forecast $52.6 billion U.S. of revenue, according to data compiled by Refinitiv data.
However, despite the revenue beat, YouTube’s advertising revenue and Google Cloud sales both fell short of analysts’ estimates, driving the company’s shares down more than 1%.
Alphabet’s shares fell as low as $2,700 U.S. in extended trading after closing at $2,786.17 U.S. in regular trading on Tuesday (October 26). The stock has risen 59% so far this year.
Alphabet’s profit was $27.99 U.S. a share in the third quarter, beating the average estimate of $23.50 U.S. But YouTube ad revenue came in at $7.2 billion U.S. Analysts were looking for the world’s most popular video-sharing site to generate $7.5 billion U.S. in revenue.
Sales from the company’s cloud division rose to $4.99 billion U.S., but missed Wall Street expectations of $5.04 billion U.S. While the unit has gained some market share, it still lags leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.
Alphabet also repurchased $12.6 billion U.S. of its own stock during the last quarter and said it had added nearly 18,000 full-time staff during the period, bringing its global workforce to 150,028.
