Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., speaks during the CEO Summit of the Americas hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, California, US, on Thursday, June 9, 2022.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Google parent Alphabet will report fourth-quarter earnings Thursday after the close of regular trading. Here’s what analysts are expecting:
- Earnings: $1.18 per share, according to Refinitiv estimates.
- Revenue: $76.53 billion, according to Refinitiv estimates.
- YouTube advertising revenue: $8.25 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates.
- Google Cloud revenue: $7.43 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates.
- Traffic acquisition costs (TAC): $13.32 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates.
Google’s core ad business is expected to report minimal expansion from a year earlier, and growth is likely to remain in the single digits until late 2023, based on analyst estimates.
A slowing economy and competition from TikTok have hurt Google as well as digital ad rivals Snap and Facebook. Earlier this week, Snap reported weaker-than-expected revenue, while Facebook parent Meta topped estimates but still recorded a 4% decline in sales.
In January, Alphabet announced it was laying off 12,000 employees, or 6% of its workforce. The company told employees recently that more of them will be at risk for low performance ratings than in prior years.
Alphabet also cut staff in its health sciences unit Verily by 15%, citing a restructuring that will supposedly better position the business to seek financial independence.
Pressure is mounting for Google in other ways.
Artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT, launched late last year by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, is viewed as posing a risk to Google’s search engine. Executives teased that the company may introduce a similar product to the public at some point this year. CNBC reported this week that Google is internally experimenting with several potential products that could influence its search business.
In January, the U.S. Justice Department filed its second antitrust lawsuit against Google in just over two years, this one targeting its advertising business. It marked the first federal lawsuit against Google filed during the Biden administration.
Google is now showing its willingness to invest heavily in live sports. During the fourth quarter, the company agreed to pay $2 billion per year for the next seven years for YouTube to own the exclusive rights for “NFL Sunday Ticket.”
WATCH: U.S. Justice Department addresses antitrust litigation against Google
