Google’s quarterly results badly miss analysts’ expectations

“Mobile continues to bug Google,” Katie Lobosco reports for CNNMoney. “The company’s Motorola smartphone division continues to lose money, and a rise in mobile ads has squeezed the company’s profits.”

“The search giant reported that its second-quarter net income rose to $3.23 billion, or $9.56 cents per share,” Lobosco reports. “Though profit rose 15% from last year, Google’s results badly missed Wall Street analysts’ earnings expectations of $10.78 per share.”

“Google’s sales jumped to $14.1 billion, up 19% year-over-year,” Lobosco reports. “That also fell short of analysts’ estimates of $14.4 billion… Shares of Google [GOOG] feel 5% in after-hours trading. ”

Read more in the full article here.

“Operating margins dipped to a lower-than-expected 28 percent in the quarter from 33 percent a year earlier,” Alexei Oreskovic reports for Reuters. “Motorola, a money-losing handset manufacturer Google acquired in 2012, racked up a loss of $218 million before items, more than four times the $49 million it lost a year earlier.”

“‘It’s a little bit of a concern. Maybe they are not getting enough early traction with enhanced campaigns. The trajectory with CPCs [cost per click] should be getting a little better,’ said Kerry Rice, an analyst at Needham & Co.,” Oreskovic reports. “The operating margins miss, partly on Motorola’s swelling losses, were another cause for worry.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take:

Google’s going to rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them.MacDailyNews Take, March 09, 2010

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dale S.” for the heads up.]

49 Comments

        1. Not exactly. In iOS 7, Google is the default browser in mobile Safari, but Bing is used when you ask Siri to search the web for you.

          BTW, Google pays Apple every time you search it in Safari’s search field.

    1. twodales said:
      The next knife to the belly should be removing Google as the default search engine in iOS. Cut their nuts off.

      Already done in iOS 7. It’s, *gag*, Bing instead! But hey. Sticking it to Google trumps sticking it to Microsoft at this point.

      Yeah Google. Payback is a hella bitch.

      1. For all their bluster, Microsoft and Steve Ballmer have been humbled, if not soundly beaten. The reorganisations and personnel shakeups are viewed by analysts and partisans as little more than the hopeless thrashing of a toppled behemoth. Only a cloud of conceit insulates them from embarrassment—that and Uncle Scrooge’s money bin and a lingering entourage of sycophants.

        That being said, Apple has Microsoft right where they want them!—damaged, vulnerable, and ready to partner up. This somewhat-alliance emerges just when Google is shaping up as the new Evil That Must Be Stopped.

    1. What you said. When Appl announced Maps for iOS I thought to myself, wow that would be cool to have on my Mac, maybe put it in the App Store. So, it didn’t really surprise me when it was announced that it was part of Mavericks (the surprise was that it wasn’t an App Store download for $x.xx)

      I haven’t seen it yet but I hope there are a few goodies that make sense on a non-iOS devices. Like waypoints & saved maps. In other words think Mappoint without all the suck!

    2. I haven’t used Google Maps since iOS Maps debuted. I’ve had some problems, but no more than I did using Google.

      Its very conceivable, with the rapid updating that Apple has been doing, that iOS Maps are better than Google Maps. Its certainly a helluva lot faster.

    1. $1.22 is the amount it was missed by in which it was referenced as being badly missed. The .3 billion you are referring to MDN said fell short of. All of which seems appropriate.

  1. I should be cheering. My takeaway however is that this shows how poor a job analysts do, yet they are not held accountable. What happened to Google could happen to Apple. That is, Apple could hit its numbers for the quarter, yet poor calculations and projections by analysts could pummel the stock.

    My point is this: even if a company does well, if its numbers fail to meet or exceed the analyst community’s highly inaccurate estimates, the company’s stock can be badly punished. That makes no sense.

    When an analyst holds the power to sway a stock’s value, and a company’s market capitalization by billions of dollars, even if their assumptions are suspect at best, they should be held accountable. You are. I am. Apple is. So why should an analyst be no different?

    It’s all well and good that Phillip-Elmer DeWitt at Fortune has his quarterly chart rating how the analysts fared. But I’d like to see some real teeth be brought to bear on the accuracy of analysts. Why is that that some blowhard like Trip Chowdery can blast Apple or cite wildly inaccurate rumors about Apple, knocking millions, if not billions off its market capitalization in a day, when his assertions are based merely on his poorly informed views and not facts?

    By Grabthar’s hammer, by the sons of Worvan, this will be avenged.

      1. 1st Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

        1. Try yelling “bomb” at an airport and see where your “free speech” will take you…

          With every right comes responsibility. You can speak but need to stand the consequences. Specially when your words can benefit some and destroy others.

  2. Check out Engadget… they said Google performed very well. 19% increase YOY in sales and revenue. They missed guidance from 14.4 to 14.1. Not a biggie.
    Apple has done worse in the last few quarters!

    The 23rd can’t come fast enough when Apple misses badly on Q2!

    1. The 14.4 vs 14.1 was Revenue. Earnings miss was much greater. Lower margins killed them. Moto leasing $200 MM per quarter. Don’t think Moto X is going to save them. May cannibalize HTC and Samesung. Android customers lack brand loayty since there is no consistent ecoystem. If you have an S2 and go to a S4, you have to buy new apps in many cases.

  3. How come no analysts nor journalists have written any bad rumors or misinformation about Google until today which Google reported about its profit decline vs In the past several months, we’ve read plenty of negative of rumor about Apple. Journalist and analysts should be hold accountable for their bad behaviors.

  4. I was JUST pointing out Google’s bad boohoo news to Laughing_Boy48.

    What A Shame.

    Here’s the NYT article on the subject:

    Google Misses Expectations for Revenue and Profit
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/technology/google-misses-expectations-for-revenue-and-profit.html

    Now, of course, we don’t wish upon Google anything like the Apple Bear Bullshit of the last 6 months whereby their stock get’s hammered by FUD and FRAUD. But GOOG is waaay over due for what we call a ‘CORRECTION’. So maybe this is the time.

    It could be fun! Let’s watch…

    1. This is kind of a stretch, as the relevant quantitative data don’t get aggregated, but my thought is that Apple-bashing headlines and articles, so numerous for so long, have arrived at the point of fatigue saturation, where the topical page hit counts are declining. Seeing this, cynical webmeisters will scan for the next likely whipping boys. (This is apart from stock manipulation tactics.) In today’s sadly unevolved society, this is the unfortunate news and information business model on the World Wide Web.

        1. You’re forgiven. I don’t nail every sentence down with a staple gun, but I do try not to get myself in the thumb. You’ll let me know when I do! 🙂

  5. buying Moto was the best self-inflicted wound GOOG has ever done to themselves

    $12B to buy a money-losing business (and still bleeding every single quarter) for a bunch of ancient FRAND patents

    GOOG+MOTO ranks right up there with AOL Time Warner and Sprint Nextel

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