Google’s Q1 Misses on Hefty EU Fine

Google-parent company Alphabet disappointed Wall Street with first-quarter revenue misses on Monday, as it grapples with a hefty European Commission fine. Had it not been for the $1.7 billion penalty, which was levied on the Internet giant last month for anticompetitive practices in online advertising, Alphabet would have sailed over expectations of $10.60 per share, as outlined by a Refinitiv analyst survey. Its earnings per share would have come to $11.90. But instead, with the EU fine, Alphabet’s EPS rang in at $9.50, while revenue clocked in at $29.48 billion, coming in under the $30.04 billion expected. Growth of paid clicks on Google sites showed a steep drop-off, compared to the previous two quarters: Over the first three months of 2019, paid clicks grew 39 percent, year-over-year. The third and fourth quarters of 2018 gains clocked in at 62 and 66 percent. Not all the news was bad: Traffic acquisition costs amounted to $6.86 billion, or 22 percent of advertising revenue, which was shy of FactSet’s expected $7.26 billion. Last quarter, Alphabet shares stumbled when it reported more capital expenditures and a lower operating margin than expected. But overall, investor optimism had sent the stock up 24 percent for the year. On the heels of

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