Updated: Live Google Call Coverage
So, Google beats analyst consensus tonight -- $3.18 in earnings versus $2.92 consensus, and similar on revenues -- and the stock falls 3%. Was it the whisper number that did it in?Good question. The result was an 8% beat, but numbers as high as 20% were being throw around by analysts and troublemakers. Call it the triumph of whisper numbers, once again.
[Update] In case people are curious, the much-watched capex figure came in at $367-million, or 16.5% of sales. That is down slightly from recent quarters, but still a Big Number obviously.
[Update^2] Google is turning around somewhat in afterhours, now down "only" 1.6%,
[Update^3] Eric Schmidt sayeth that "It looks like the advertising revenue on a per-search query is likely to be significantly higher on mobile than on non-mobile." That's very interesting.
[Update^4] Here
[Update^5] Apparently Chad over at YouTube has figured out what he wants from Google: A big fat subsidy to content contributors. Here is Eric from the call: "[Chad] has been pushing very hard for the development of a model where ultimately the people who produce the content in fact do get some revenue coming back in various forms of sharing." Hey, I wonder where that's going to come from?
[Update^6] So much for the pre-roll ad skeptics. Eric just 'fessed up on the call that they're coming to YouTube.
[Update^7] It's Mary! It's Mary! Oh darn, they have called an audible and put in a replacement questioner for the ever-verbal Ms. Meeker. And he's asking a "really quick question". What is the financial world coming to when you can't count of Morgan's Meeker for a massive and meandering question-cum-opus?
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