Alphabet Shares Fall After Search Miss and Cash Outflow

Alphabet’s September-quarter results showed sharply different trends across its businesses: Google Cloud revenue more than doubled, while Search growth slowed and earnings fell. Shares dropped about 10% in premarket trading on October 29, after the company reported results the previous day. Revenue for the three months ended September 30 rose 25% from a year earlier to $127.6 billion. Net income available to common stockholders fell to $26.2 billion from $35 billion, and earnings were $2.12 per share, down from $2.87. The company said an $8.7 billion loss on equity securities reduced net income by $6.7 billion. Google Cloud revenue climbed 103% to $30.7 billion, while the unit’s operating income rose to $11.1 billion from $3.6 billion a year earlier. Alphabet attributed the expansion to demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure and solutions, as well as cloud services and its tensor processing units, or TPUs. Cloud revenue exceeded analyst estimates cited in reports. Search and other revenue increased 12% to $63.35 billion, below analysts’ $64.96 billion estimate. Search query growth was the fastest in five years, according to CEO Sundar Pichai, but the company’s chief...