Alphabet is A-OK
It's still all about Search. That was the five-word soundbite that you might have come away with had you combed through Alphabet's latest quarterly update yesterday.
Although the company reported a slowdown, Alphabet still managed to grow its second quarter revenue some 13% in the last year. Whilst not a home-run performance, it was something of a relief following the recent reports of digital ad rivals Snapchat and Twitter, both of which disappointed investors. At the time of writing it's been good enough for Alphabet shares to climb 4% this morning.
Still searching
Google Search, which still represents more than half of Alphabet's total business, saw ad sales grow 14% in the most recent quarter — significantly outperforming YouTube which only grew 5%. That confirms a long-held theory that the search ad market might be less fickle than the social media ad market.
In a recession people might not click that flashy e-commerce ad on Instagram or Snapchat quite as much as they used to, but they seem to still be searching Google for "cheapest car insurance", "restaurants near me" or "best value vacations" — all of which Google can monetize.
