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Alphabet said it spend $15.55 billion on share repurchases during the fourth quarter, and bought back $62.22 billion worth of stock in 2024.
That helped lower the number of shares used in calculating diluted earnings per share to 12.348 billion as of Dec. 31 from 12.419 billion as of Sept. 30 and from 12.602 billion as of Dec. 31, 2023.
With Q4 net income at $26.536 billion, EPS was $2.15, above the FactSet consensus of $2.13. But if the Q3 share count was used, EPS would be a penny lower at $2.14. And if the year-ago share count was used, EPS would drop down to about $2.11.
Alphabet reported traffic acquisition costs of $14.85 billion, up 6.2% from a year ago, but less than the FactSet consensus of $15.03 billon.
Relatedly, the company said sales and marketing costs fell 4.6% to $7.36 billion, which was well below expectations of $7.94 billion.
Alphabet said that its losses in its Other Bets segments grew to $1.17 billion, up from $863 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue fell as well to $400 million, a drop of 39%, from $657 million a year ago.
Alphabet noted in its earnings release that revenue from Other Bets is generated primarily from the sale of healthcare-related services and internet services. Other Bets is a combination of multiple operating segments that are not individually material.
Alphabet reported net hiring of 821 employees in the fourth quarter, to mark the 2nd-straight quarter of workforce growth.
The company had 183,323 employees as of Dec. 31, the most since the recent peak of 190,711 employees at the end of Q1 2023.
That company started cutting staff during Q2 2023, as the workforce dropped 8,913 employees that quarter to 181,798. The recent low point was 179,582 at the end of Q2 2024.
Alphabet’s revenue for its total advertising business came in at $72.5 billion in the fourth quarter, up 10.6% year over year, and slightly above Wall Street’s estimates.
According to FactSet, analysts had been looking for ad revenue to come in at $71.7 billion.
YouTube ads pulled in $10.5 billion, up 14%, versus the year-over-year YouTube ad revenue of $9.2 billion.
Alphabet reported Q4 profit and that beat expectations but revenue that missed, for the first time in two years.
EPS rose to $2.15 from $1.64 a year ago, above the FactSet consensus of $2.13. That was the eighth-straight quarter of bottom-line beats.
Revenue grew 11.8% to $96.47 billion, but that was below the FactSet consensus of $96.68 billion to snap a seven-quarter streak of top-line beats.
The stock sank 6.9% in recent after-hours trading, after closing the regular session at a record high.
