Google released its latest quarterly results earlier this week, as I reported in a special mid-week update.
Only the real story was two things it went out of its way not the mention.
The first was historic. This will be the last financial report by the world’s most famous tech company before it hears from a judge how it will be broken up.
That deserved a mention. Google didn’t. Nor did any of the financial media that scoured. Very odd.
The other is just naughty. As a CEO and board member, your responsibility is to ensure your shareholders and the market are aware of the risks the business faces.
Sure you can hide it behind the gloss and happy news you want to report to look good, but you still have a requirement to tell the market about the bad stuff too.
Google didn’t even mention the break-up in its quarterly update. That’s breathtaking - and reckless, as it will almost certainly lead to a shareholder damages action.
These are the numbers Google wanted you to know:
AI Overviews has two billion monthly users in 200 countries and 40 languages.
And Google’s new AI Mode has reached 100 million users in the US and India.
YouTube and Google cloud have 270 million paying subscribers.
Gemini doubled the training data it’s consuming in the past three months.
YouTube Shorts (its TikTok clone) has passed 200 billion daily views.
Ad yields on shorts now match the CPMs on YouTube pre- and mid-roll ads.
The Gemini app now has 450 million active monthly users.
The number of daily requests for Ai services as risen 50 per cent in 30 days.
That’s driving cloud revenues, which have reached a $50 billion annual run rate.
Nine million developers have now built apps, agents, and tools, with Gemini.
Google’s new GenAI Veo 3 has made 70 million videos since May.
Google’s total revenue rose 14 per cent to $96.4 billion - more than $1 billion a day.
Search revenue was 5.9 per cent, and
YouTube up 6.5 per cent.
But for the nine in 10 publishers and the open web that relies on Google for discovery, distribution, and monetisation, the news was more break.
First, on monetisation, the amount Google passes to third parties through AdX and GAM coninues to slow, as it protects its owned and operated properties.
This is how much Google has sent to publishers and the open web quarter on quarter since it started reporting the numbers. Note the dotted red trendline…
It’s easier to see how Google is bleeding the web for its own profits when viewed over annual reporting. and all these numbers are from Google’s official financials.
Maybe it’s time for that break-up that no-one mentions?
and I got into it on Scotch and Watch last night.We also discussed how YouTube’s overtaking Netflix, the future of sports rights, and how the loss of the secret Apple deal will cost Alphabet $150 billion in cash flow.
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