Right on time, Google's parent company Alphabet held its Q1 2019 earnings call on April 29 to enlighten everyone about its performance over the last three months. While there were quite a few wins announced during the call, there is one loss that stands out quite a bit.
Alphabet's quarterly revenue hit $36.6 billion, and while that's certainly a good heap of money, it's lower than Wall Street's estimation of $37.7 billion. It's also an increase of 17% compared to this time last year, making it the slowest increase in the last three years. For comparison's sake, Q1 2018 saw an increase of 26%. Of this year's revenue, 84.5% came from advertising whereas it accounted for 85.5% last year.
On the other end of the spectrum, Google saw increased expenses for Q1 2019 with them going up 16.5% to $29.7 billion. Growing expenses has been a trend or Alphabet for the last two years, and understandably so, is causing concern with some investors. Speaking of expenses, part of that $29.7 billion number includes a $1.7 billion fine which Google had to pay to the European Commission for infringing on competition laws with AdSense and Google Search.
Taking a look at Google within Alphabet, there were a few big talking points to come out of the call:
- 70% of entry-level Android phones are running Android Go
- First-time buyers on the Google Play Store grew 50%
- Google Home and Google Home Mini demand is "strong"
- Google is happy with current smartphone sales
On the note of smartphone sales, Google CEO Sundar Pichai did note that there is big "pressure in the premium smartphone segment." This is a field that's really dominated by the likes of Samsung and Apple, so maybe this is a reason why we're expecting Google to launch two mid-range smartphones next month with the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL.
