Google CEO says 'best is yet to come' after Q4 results

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) just reported its best quarter for revenue growth in about two years. Shares of the tech titan are still down 5.0% in extended trading on Tuesday.

Why is Google stock down?

The stock is responding primarily to ad revenue that came in shy of Street estimates.

Google brought in $65.52 billion in ad revenue in its recently concluded quarter. Analysts, in comparison, were at $65.94 billion. Ruth Porat – its chief financial officer said in a press release today:

Wall Street currently has a consensus “buy” rating on $GOOGL.

Google Cloud did well in Q4

YouTube also printed just shy of Street estimates on Tuesday.

On the plus side, however, Google Cloud contributed $9.19 billion to the overall revenue the Nasdaq-listed firm generated in its fiscal Q4. That topped $8.94 billion that experts had forecast. According to CEO Pichai:

$GOOGL is still up 65% versus its 52-week low.

Google Q4 financial results

• Earned $20.7 billion versus the year-ago $13.6 billion
• Per-share earnings also climbed from $1.05 to $1.64
• Total revenue jumped 13% year-on-year to $86.3 billion
• Consensus was $1.59 a share on $85.33 billion in revenue
• $13.9 billion of traffic acquisition costs – less than expected

Alphabet Inc launched Gemini in the fourth financial quarter – its most capable LLM to date as Invezz reported here. CEO Sundar Pichai also said on Tuesday: