{
  "id": 17006619,
  "title": "Google owner Alphabet’s shares plummet on profit miss, ad slowdown",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/29/google-owner-alphabets-shares-plummet-on-profit-miss-ad-slowdown",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-29T04:13:34.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Hindu - Sci-Tech",
    "slug": "the-hindu-sci-tech",
    "url": "https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/google-owner-alphabets-shares-plummet-on-profit-miss-ad-slowdown/article71638901.ece"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw its shares drop by over 10% in after-hours trading on Wednesday as the company announced lower-than-anticipated profits and a slowdown in its advertising sector. The July-to-September period reported a net profit of $26.2 billion, a 25% decrease from the same period the previous year. Analysts had anticipated a higher profit. Google unveiled the Gemini 4 Argon AI model, with a special focus on cybersecurity, for a select group of users. The launch included Gemini 4 Carbon, a more general-purpose AI model. Alphabet disclosed an $8.7 billion loss on its investments in equity, primarily due to its stake in SpaceX, which has experienced a decline in share value since its initial public offering in June. Revenue increased by 25% to reach $127.6 billion, slightly below the $128 billion forecast by analysts. Advertising revenue grew by 11% to $82.0 billion, falling short of expectations. The search business, which generates the majority of Alphabet's income, expanded by 12% to $63.4 billion, a slower growth rate compared to the previous quarter's 17% increase. YouTube, the most-watched streaming service in the US, experienced a 9% rise in advertising revenue to $11.2 billion, down from 13% growth in the prior quarter. YouTube Music and Premium surpassed 150 million subscribers globally, including trial users. Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing services and AI tools to businesses, saw revenue soar by 103% to $30.7 billion, exceeding analysts' projections. The company attributed this growth to significant sales of its in-house AI chips, the Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Sales of these chips also pose a growing challenge to Nvidia's market dominance. Alphabet's \"Other Bets\" division, comprising the Waymo robotaxi company, generated $372 million in revenue and incurred a $2.0 billion operating loss. Waymo now offers over 500,000 paid rides weekly across 15 US metropolitan areas and aims to achieve one million weekly rides by year-end. Alphabet allocated $51.4 billion on capital expenditures during the quarter, mainly for data centers and AI chips, which is nearly double the $24 billion spent a year earlier. The company projects capex spending between $195 billion and $205 billion for 2026. Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that this substantial investment is part of a long-term planning process rather than a short-term allocation decision. Despite the spending increase, Alphabet raised $28.7 billion by selling bonds and $12.4 billion through new share issuance to fund its AI initiatives. The company has accelerated its AI developments following a delay in a major model launch in July, raising doubts about its competitiveness against OpenAI and Anthropic. The Gemini 4 AI model was released at the end of September, followed by a specialized version dedicated to cybersecurity. The Gemini app has already reached one billion users. Google's AI models now process approximately 32 billion tokens per minute, more than quadrupling their capacity from a year ago. Anthropic, the creator of the Claude chatbot, is one of Google's largest cloud customers and has committed to using up to one million Google AI chips. In September, a US judge ruled against ordering Google to divest parts of its advertising technology business, instead imposing restrictions on its operations.",
  "summary": "Net profit slid 25 percent from a year earlier to $26.2 billion in the July-to-September period, or $2.12 per share",
  "key_points": [
    "Alphabet shares drop 10% after-hours on lower-than-expected profits.",
    "Google's advertising revenue grew 11% to $82.0 billion, missing forecasts.",
    "Google Cloud revenue surged 103% to $30.7 billion, driven by AI chip sales."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}