Current Price: $1,252 Price Target: $1,350
Position Size: 4.7% TTM Performance: -2%
Alphabet reported earnings, beating on the top line and EPS. Currency neutral net revenue accelerated to +24% YoY vs. +19% in 1Q. Revenue beat and acceleration was a relief after missing on the top line last quarter on a deceleration that wasn’t sufficiently explained. Additionally, some cost pressures moderated – TAC as a percent of revenue decreased and capex growth decelerated. Cloud was one of the top contributors of growth and, after over a year of no specific detail on cloud, they indicated it’s at an $8B run rate. They also announced a new $25B stock repurchase plan.
Key takeaways:
· Top growth drivers were mobile search, YouTube and cloud.
· Operating margin of 23.6% beat estimates by ~100bps as operating expense growth slowed.
· The biggest operating expense increase, once again, was in R&D expenses, reflecting their focus on product innovation. Headcount is also key driver in opex increases.
· Cloud is now at an $8B run-rate. This is double the run rate revealed in Q1 last year. On Amazon’s call yesterday they indicated that AWS growth slowed to 37% from 50% (this was slower than expected growth). Microsoft’s Azure grew 68% in the quarter. This substantiates the idea that the cloud positioning of Google, along with MSFT, is improving.
· Google had a change in leadership in their cloud business this year and is looking to triple its cloud division sales force this year.
· They mentioned some major cloud customers including Lowe’s and Vodafone,
· YouTube: channels with >1M subs grew 75%. YouTube Music and YouTube Premium now available in over 60 countries, up from five markets at the start of 2018.
· They have long talked about hardware as a growth priority for them and gave some positive data points around the most recent Pixel phone launch in May. They also said to stay tuned for a new hardware launch coming in the Fall.
· Stadia, their streaming video game business will also launch in the Fall.
· While Amazon is poised to take share in online advertising, growth in AMZN’s emerging ad business again decelerated this quarter while Google saw accelerating growth.
· Waymo announced that it has entered into an exclusive partnership with Renault and Nissan to explore driverless mobility services for passengers and deliveries in France and Japan.
· Increasing buybacks: repurchased $3.6B of stock in 2Q vs. $3B in 1Q and announced a new $25B stock repurchase plan – there’s ~$7B remaining on previous authorization.
· ESG: announced a $1 billion investment in housing across the Bay Area to help address the chronic shortage of affordable housing. And earlier this week, they invested $50 million in Housing Trust Silicon Valley’s TECH Fund, which furthers the goal to help communities succeed over the long-term and expands access to housing for those who need it most.
Valuation:
· Operating cash flow was $12.6 billion with free cash flow of $6.5 billion.
· Reasonable valued, trading at >4% FCF yield on 2020.
· $108B in net cash, ~14% of their market cap.
$GOOGL.US
[tag GOOGL]
Sarah Kanwal
Equity Analyst, Director
Direct: 617.226.0022
Fax: 617.523.8118
Crestwood Advisors
One Liberty Square, Suite 500
Boston, MA 02109