A botched earnings release and disappointing results combined
to make Thursday a bad day for Google (GOOG) investors, wiping out more than
$20 billion in market value as the price of the Internet search giant's stock
took an unexpected plunge.
Google CEO Larry Page, his voice still hoarse from an unexplained malady
that has kept him mostly silent in recent months, sought to mend some of the
damage by assuring analysts on a conference call that the company's
advertising business and other operations are growing.
"We had a strong quarter. I'm very happy with our business," he said,
after apologizing for a contractor who mistakenly issued Google's
third-quarter earnings report several hours before it was scheduled for
release. Google temporarily halted trading in its stock after a sell-off by
startled investors sent shares plummeting more than 9 percent.
The report itself showed Google's profit had an uncharacteristic decline
of 20 percent for the quarter that ended in September, compared with a year
earlier. Revenue grew nearly 50 percent, with the addition of sales from
Google's newly acquired Motorola division, but it fell short of what Wall
Street analysts had been forecasting.
Google said it earned $2.18 billion in net income, or $6.53 a share, on revenue of $11.33 billion,
after subtracting commissions paid to partners. Wall Street analysts were
expecting Google to report earnings of $8.71 a share on revenue of $11.87
billion, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
The numbers contained some troubling indicators for Google's mobile
business.
Some investors were alarmed because the report showed the average amount
that advertisers pay Google when consumers click on an ad declined 15 percent
from a year ago, said financial analyst Colin Gillis of BGC Partners. "People
paying less for your product is never a good thing."
It was the fourth such decline in as many quarters, Gillis noted. He said
the shift is occurring because more people are using the Internet on their
mobile devices, but advertisers aren't willing to pay as much for mobile ads
because their effectiveness is still unclear.
Facebook and other online advertising companies are struggling with the
same problem, Gillis added, but the numbers show that Google, the world's
biggest Internet advertising company, is not immune.
Google executives have downplayed the decline in advertisers' so-called "cost per click," saying it's a result of shifting foreign
exchange rates and changes in the way ads are sold. They pointed to another
figure that showed a 33 percent increase in the rate that consumers actually
clicked on ads, creating revenue for Google with each click.
Some of the company's mobile ads are making more money than ads shown on
desktop computer screens, said Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette,
although he did not provide specifics.
Page also told analysts that Google is ahead of other companies in
helping advertisers design campaigns to reach consumers who increasingly use
"multiple screens" as they move from desktop computer to tablets and
smartphones.
Google is now on track to collect $8 billion in annual revenue from its
mobile Internet operations, Page said. While that includes income from the
sale of apps and digital content such as music and videos, Pichette said the
"vast majority" is from advertising. He declined to give details.
Analysts were also concerned that Google's report showed the company's
operating expenses rose nearly 45 percent from a year ago, even as Google
moved forward with layoffs in its recently acquired Motorola Mobility
division, which reported an operating loss of $527 million.
Google has been overhauling the division, but Pichette warned that its
performance will be "quite variable for some time."
While Google has missed analysts' estimates before, investors have become
accustomed to strong performance from the company. The decline Thursday was
even more dramatic because Google's stock has soared more than 25 percent over
the past three months, making it one of the most valuable tech companies in
the world, after Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft.
The premature report didn't help, according to Gillis, who said it
created "a knee-jerk reaction. Phones were exploding and people were trying to
digest the numbers with no commentary from the company."
It's highly unusual to report earnings during trading hours because
companies and regulators want to avoid the kind of reaction that occurred
Thursday. Shares rebounded only slightly when trading resumed later in the
day.
But another analyst, Ben Schachter of Macquarie Securities, said that,
except for the Motorola division, Google's overall revenue growth was strong.
"While the timing and the headlines are a mess," he wrote in a note to
investors, "the fact is that the top-line fundamentals for Google's core
business are solid."
