By Islam El-Sakka
Alphabet Inc. shares fell about 9% to $295.20 in after-hours trading Wednesday after the Google parent company reported third-quarter results that missed Wall Street expectations.
Earnings miss expectations
Net income for the July-September period dropped to $26.17 billion from $34.98 billion a year earlier. Revenue rose 25% to $127.58 billion but fell short of the $127.97 billion average analyst estimate. Earnings per share came in at $2.12, well below the $3.01 forecast, largely due to an $8.7 billion loss on equity investments during the quarter.
Pichai highlights AI growth
Chief Executive Sundar Pichai described the quarter as strong, noting the company is now on a half-trillion-dollar annual revenue run rate. He said the Gemini AI assistant has reached one billion users, making it the fastest-growing product in Google's history.
