In the recent announcement of second quarter financial results, Alphabet, the owner of Google, exceeded expectations with strong results but suffered at the hands of its recent, record breaking EU fine.
Up by 21 percent year-over-year, Alphabet achieved $26.01 billion in revenue, going beyond the $25.64 billion that had been originally anticipated.
Although a substantial increase, the year-over-year percentage could have been as high as 28 percent if the huge EU fine had not been enforced.
The EU is claiming that Google had broken rules by taking advantage of its web search prominence to benefit the results of its shopping service, the penalty for which Google says is $2.7 billion.
Despite the solid performance, investors had expected better still, and were disgruntled by the fact that YouTube for example had been swept under the Google business rug yet again, withholding specific financial results.
In light of this disappointment, after-hours trading on Monday, the day the results were released, saw Alphabet’s stock fall by approximately three percent.
Alphabet has weathered the second quarterly results better than some other major players, such as IBM for example, with the tech industry behemoth reporting losses for the 21st consecutive quarter.
Gemalto also sustained a big hit, falling by 16 percent on the back of a weakening grip on the market with its removable SIM card business, a technology that is becoming increasingly irrelevant as others are streamlined.
