Off by a billion... Revenue growth for Google-parent Alphabet decelerated hard in the 1st quarter to its slowest pace since 2015. And the profit made off that $1B-less-than-expected revenue was also (you got it) less than expected. Shares tanked 7% after investors learned Google is ~~human~~ fallible.
"Hey Google: What is competition?"... It's Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Amazon. All of them have surging advertising divisions and they're all bad for Google. Here's the ad growth scoreboard for Q1:
Google's monopoly game is over... For 15 years, its business model was to grow the internet (developed to developing nations, desktop to mobile), then reap more and more $$ off it with online ads. Now it's ad-dependent — Ads are 86% of its revenues. With today's real competition, Google needs to embrace a new skill or embrace less growth.