Alphabet (GOOG)

[Beheerder]

[nobody]

Alphabet heads towards US$2 trillion with investors cheering AI progress

(April 11): Investors are becoming more optimistic about Alphabet Inc’s artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, after a run of glitches and misfires that sent its shares tumbling.

The stock is heading back toward what would be a record US$2 trillion (RM9.5 trillion) market value — a milestone surpassed only by Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp in the US. It has rallied back from last month’s low, when the shares dropped on concerns the company was falling behind in AI.

Using this week’s cloud event to show that its AI model is enterprise-ready despite recent stumbles in its consumer-facing tools, focus is now turning to this month’s earnings and a developer’s conference in May. While Alphabet’s path to AI monetization is still seen as cloudy, the stock’s relatively cheap valuation has kept it attractive to many on Wall Street.

“While the headlines haven’t been favourable, Google’s role in generative AI products will present massive growth opportunities for the stock,” said Sylvia Jablonski, chief executive officer at Defiance ETFs. Alphabet is also set to benefit from making its own generative AI tools that can power more precise ads and increase revenues from ad spend, she added.

Alphabet’s misfiring Gemini product had been viewed as a major setback for a firm known for its technological prowess, with the company in February pausing an image generation feature that drew criticism over inaccurate historical depictions of race.

The company’s cloud computing conference in Las Vegas this week offered investors some reassurance, as the firm showed how Gemini can be used to create advertisements, prevent cybersecurity threats and spin up short videos and podcasts. Google also showed a new chip designed to handle AI workloads.

News that Apple Inc is considering using Google’s Gemini technology to power AI services added more fuel to the rebound. Up to the last close, shares are up 12% this year.

“Google’s hardware advances, Gemini progress, and AI driven app demos should help sentiment on AI capabilities,” Bank of Amercia Corp analyst Justin Post wrote in a note Tuesday. “We see Cloud as positive driver for stock given AI credibility, faster growth, improving margins.”

The stock trades at 21 times forward earnings, below Microsoft’s 33 times, and about the same as the S&P 500 Index. Alphabet shares rose 0.7% on Thursday.

Still, not all are convinced by the discount, despite “plenty of people that are making the argument that it’s so cheap right now”, said Michael Lippert, vice president and portfolio manager at the Baron Opportunity Fund.

Given the competitive search space, Alphabet “should be investing every single dollar at a higher ROI (return on investment) into their own businesses”, he said.

For now, the company’s updates have at least offered investors some encouragement. JP Morgan Chase & Co analyst Doug Anmuth noting this week that he expected Gemini integration to result in more than 20% revenue growth for Google Cloud.

https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/707663

[TimeIsMoney]

Google ontslaat werknemers en verschuift een aantal functies naar het buitenland vanwege bezuinigingen
Gecreërd: 17/04/2024 | Laatst bijgewerkt: 11 uur geleden

17 april (Reuters) - Google GOOGL.O, eigendom van Alphabet, ontslaat een onbepaald aantal werknemers, zei een woordvoerder van het bedrijf woensdag, waarmee hij de laatste bezuinigingen bij de technologiegigant markeerde terwijl deze hardhandig op de kosten drukt.

De Google-woordvoerder zei dat de ontslagen niet voor het hele bedrijf gelden en dat de getroffen werknemers kunnen solliciteren op interne functies, maar specificeerde niet het aantal getroffen werknemers of de betrokken teams.

Een klein percentage van de getroffen functies zal verhuizen naar hubs waarin het bedrijf investeert, waaronder India, Chicago, Atlanta en Dublin.

De ontslagen volgen op een hele reeks banenverlies bij Google en de technologie- en media-industrie dit jaar, wat de vrees vergroot dat de ontslagen zullen aanhouden nu bedrijven worstelen met economische onzekerheid.

“Gedurende de tweede helft van 2023 en tot in 2024 hebben een aantal van onze teams veranderingen aangebracht om efficiënter te worden en beter te werken, lagen te verwijderen en hun middelen af ​​te stemmen op hun grootste productprioriteiten”, voegde de woordvoerder eraan toe.

Volgens een Business Insider-rapport van woensdag zijn medewerkers van verschillende Google-teams op de vastgoed- en financiële afdelingen getroffen. De getroffen financiële teams zijn onder meer de treasury-, zakelijke dienstverlening- en inkomstenactiviteiten van Google, voegde het eraan toe.

De financiële chef van Google, Ruth Porat, stuurde een e-mail naar het personeel waarin hij zei dat de herstructurering een uitbreiding van de groei naar Bangalore, Mexico City en Dublin omvat, aldus het Business Insider-rapport.

Google heeft in januari honderden werknemers in meerdere teams ontslagen, inclusief de engineering-, hardware- en assistent-teams, terwijl het bedrijf de investeringen opvoert en zijn aanbod op het gebied van kunstmatige intelligentie uitbreidt.

CEO van het bedrijf, Sundar Pichai, vertelde zijn werknemers begin dit jaar naar verluidt dat ze nog meer banenverlies moesten verwachten.

[nobody]

Google Fires Workers Protesting $1.2 Billion Israeli Contract

(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc.’s Google has fired 28 employees after they were involved in protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint contract with Amazon.com Inc. to provide the Israeli government with AI and cloud services.

The protests, which were led by the No Tech for Apartheid organization, took place Tuesday across Google offices in New York City, Seattle, and Sunnyvale, California. Protesters in New York and California staged a nearly 10-hour sit-in, with others documenting the action, including through a Twitch livestream. Nine of them were arrested Tuesday evening on trespassing charges.

Several workers involved in the protests, including those who were not directly engaged in the sit-in, received a message from the company’s Employee Relations group informing them that they had been put on leave. Google told the affected employees that it’s “keeping this matter as confidential as possible, only disclosing information on a need to know basis” in an email seen by Bloomberg. On Wednesday evening, the workers were informed they were being dismissed by the company, according to a statement from Google staff with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign.

“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior,” Google said in a statement about the protesters. “After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety. We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”

Google has long favored a culture of open debate, but employee activism in recent years has tested that commitment. Workers who organized a 2018 walkout over the company’s handling of sexual assault allegations said Google punished them for their activism. Four other workers alleged they were fired for organizing opposition to Google’s work with federal Customs and Border Protection and for other workplace advocacy.

US labor law gives employees the right to engage in collective action related to working conditions. Tech workers will likely argue that this should grant them the ability to band together to object to how the tools they create are used, said John Logan, a professor of labor at San Francisco State University.

“Tech workers are not like other kinds of workers,” he said. “You can make an argument in this case that having some sort of say or control or ability to protest about how their work product is being used is actually a sort of key issue.”

Tech companies like Google have a reputation for having “more egalitarian and very cosmopolitan work cultures, but when they encountered labor activism among their own workers, they actually responded in a sort of quite draconian way,” Logan added.

Two Googlers who were involved in the protest in California told Bloomberg that a group of workers gathered on the sixth floor of Google’s Sunnyvale bureau, where Cloud Chief Executive Officer Thomas Kurian’s office is located, to show support for those who were staging the sit-in. It’s unclear how Google identified participants in the protest, as only some had their badges scanned by security personnel, and some of those who were fired were outside Google’s offices, according to the employees.

One worker said Google may have framed the move to initially place employees on leave as “confidential” to save face publicly, and argued that the protesters did not violate any company policies. The protesters left the building as soon as they were asked to and did not obstruct or disrupt others at the company, the person said.

Beyond the protest, Google has struggled with how to manage internal debate about the Middle East conflict. After the demonstration, posts on internal Google forums featured a mix of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sentiment, with a number of other workers saying they felt the topic was inappropriate for the workplace, a Google employee said. Moderators locked down some threads on the subject, saying prior discussions had gotten too heated, the employee added.

Despite Google’s response, employees demonstrating against Project Nimbus have seen an uptick in support since the sit-in, said one of the fired workers.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-f ... 34200.html

[ZyppBe]

https://blog.google/inside-google/compa ... pril-2024/

[Wimpie85]

Aandelen van Google-moeder Alphabet schoten donderdag nabeurs omhoog op Wall Street, nu het bedrijf voor het eerst een cashdividend gaat uitkeren.

Alphabet wil 0,20 dollar per aandeel uitkeren, maakte het donderdag bekend bij de kwartaalcijfers.

Momenteel 12 procent hoger nabeurs.

[Bubble Breaker]

Aandelen van Google-moeder Alphabet schoten donderdag nabeurs omhoog op Wall Street, nu het bedrijf voor het eerst een cashdividend gaat uitkeren.

Alphabet wil 0,20 dollar per aandeel uitkeren, maakte het donderdag bekend bij de kwartaalcijfers.

Momenteel 12 procent hoger nabeurs.

0,20 per aandeel per kwartaal.
En voor 70 miljard dollar aandelen inkopen.

[ZyppBe]

Google is een dividend growth aandeel nu

Knap kwartaal wel, Cloud, YouTube, ... Search is dead, they said.

En m.i. nog veel mogelijkheden voor kostenoptimalisatie.

20240426_001651.jpg

[nobody]

Alphabet joins US$2 trillion club as results show AI strength

(April 27): Alphabet Inc closed decisively above a US$2 trillion (RM9.54 trillion) market capitalisation for the first time on Friday, as a powerhouse earnings report reassured investors that the Google parent would be a major player in artificial intelligence (AI).

The stock rose 10% to US$171.95, its biggest one-day jump since July 2015, resulting in a valuation of US$2.15 trillion. The advance added almost US$200 billion to the company’s market capitalisation, making for one of the largest single-day value adds in stock market history. Shares have risen 23% this year, compared with a 5.3% gain in the Nasdaq 100 Index.

The US$2 trillion milestone followed the company’s results, where revenue beat expectations on the strength of its cloud-computing unit. Cloud demand was fuelled by growth in AI, while Alphabet also cheered investors by introducing a dividend and announcing a US$70 billion buy-back programme.

“Alphabet is tremendously well managed, its free cash flow is absolutely astonishing, and it has a massive research and development budget, so while no one knows what company will have the best AI products, this is a tough one to bet against,” said Wayne Kaufman, the chief market analyst of Phoenix Financial Services.

While the stock breached the US$2 trillion level on an intraday basis in 2021, and again earlier this month, this is the first time Alphabet has closed above it. Doing so puts it into rarefied territory — only Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Saudi Aramco, and Nvidia Corp have surpassed the threshold. Nvidia — driven by massive demand for its AI chips — surpassed US$2 trillion earlier this year, while Amazon.com Inc isn’t far from US$2 trillion itself.

The path to US$2 trillion has been somewhat rocky. The stock has been volatile amid some high-profile criticism about the company’s AI offerings, and prior to the latest report, some investors had questioned its ability to compete with firms like OpenAI in this critical area despite spending heavily in the field for years.

Wall Street remains broadly positive on the stock, as nearly 85% of the analysts tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying. Both earnings and revenue are expected to grow at a double-digit pace every year through 2026.

In addition, the stock continues to look like something of a bargain. Shares trade around 23.5 times estimated earnings, making it among the cheapest of the so-called Magnificent Seven. The stock also trades at a discount to the Nasdaq 100, and is only modestly above its 10-year average multiple.

https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/709590

[Expat]

Google-moederbedrijf Alphabet wil af van rechtszaak over onlineadvertenties
Door onze nieuwsredactie
28 apr 2024 om 13:59

Alphabet, het moederbedrijf van Google, heeft een rechter in de Verenigde Staten gevraagd om een zaak van de Amerikaanse justitie te seponeren. Alphabet wordt beschuldigd van het monopoliseren van de onlineadvertentiemarkt. Het techconcern zegt dat justitie dit niet kan bewijzen.

Vorig jaar startte de rechtszaak over adverteren op Google. Het bedrijf kan ontzettend hoge marges vragen voor onlineadvertenties. Daarnaast zou het techconcern met zijn advertentietools en toegang tot allerlei informatie concurrerende aanbieders van advertentieruimte uit de markt houden.

Google heeft die mogelijkheden omdat het de markt domineert. Amerikaanse justitie schat het marktaandeel van Google op minstens 50 procent.

Alphabet zegt dat de aanklagers speciaal voor deze zaak markten hebben verzonnen. In de beschuldigingen zouden concurrenten op het gebied van onlinereclame, zoals Facebook, Amazon en TikTok, niet zijn meegerekend. Als hun advertentieactiviteiten wel worden meegerekend, valt het marktaandeel van Google aanzienlijk lager uit, stelt Alphabet.

Alphabet wijst ook op eerdere rechterlijke uitspraken. Daaruit blijkt dat er pas van een monopolie kan worden gesproken als een bedrijf minstens 70 procent van een markt in handen heeft.

Niet de eerste zaak tegen Alphabet
Het is niet de eerste Amerikaanse mededingingszaak tegen Alphabet. Een aantal jaar terug werd het bedrijf beschuldigd van het overtreden van de wet met zijn dominantie op de zoekmachinemarkt.

Ook in Europa liggen de grote techbedrijven onder vuur. De Europese Commissie (EC) stelde vorige maand een onderzoek in naar Apple, Google en Meta om vermeende overtredingen van regels die hun macht moeten inperken.

Apple en Google zitten appontwikkelaars nog te veel in de weg, vreest de Commissie. De techbedrijven zouden appontwikkelaars tegenwerken als die hun gebruikers zonder extra betalingen naar aanbiedingen buiten de eigen appwinkels willen sturen.

Net als in Amerika, laat de EC onderzoeken of Google in zijn zoekresultaten wel genoeg verwijst naar diensten van concurrenten. Mogelijk stuurt het bedrijf gebruikers vooral naar eigen diensten, zoals Google Shopping en Google Flights.