Shares in Google's parent company Alphabet sank Tuesday after the internet giant reported that earnings in the recently ended quarter missed market expectations, with profit down from a year earlier.
Alphabet reported net income of $16.4 billion in the first quarter on revenue that climbed 23 percent to $68 billion when compared to the same period last year. Alphabet profit was $17.9 billion in the first quarter of 2021.
Shares sank nearly five percent to $2,257 on the news.
The quarter brought strong growth in Alphabet's search and cloud computing businesses while the company continued to invest heavily in products and services, chief executive Sundar Pichai said in an earnings release.
While Alphabet saw revenue from online ads climb to more than $46 billion, the cost of acquiring online "traffic" that helps fuel that income was up some $2 billion from the same period a year ago, the earnings report showed, according to AFP.
Alphabet's ranks of employees grew to just shy of 164,000 people from 140,000 people in the same quarter last year.
The Silicon Valley titan also continued to pour money into data centers and parts of its operations that power its cloud computing services.
"We are pleased with Q1 revenue growth of 23% year over year," said Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat.
"We continue to make considered investments in Capex, (research and development) and talent to support long-term value creation for all stakeholders."
