Alphabet Earnings Demolish Expectations: 6 Metrics You Shouldn't Miss

Alphabet (GOOG -1.10%) (GOOGL -1.23%) reported strong second-quarter 2018 results after the market close on Monday. 

Shares of Class A stock, which trade under the GOOGL ticker, popped 3.9%, while Class C shares, trading under GOOG, increased 3.5% on Tuesday. The stock is having a great 2018, with both classes up 19.3% through Tuesday, versus the S&P 500's 6.6% return, after climbing 32.9% and 35.6%, respectively, last year.

Here's an overview of Alphabet's quarter in six numbers.

Image source: Alphabet.

Revenue jumped 26%

Alphabet's net sales increased 26% year over year to $32.7 billion, slightly beating the $32.2 billion that Wall Street was expecting. On a constant-currency basis, revenue increased 23%.

Here's how the segments -- Google and other bets -- performed:

Data source: Alphabet.

The Google segment's growth continues to be led by mobile search, "with strong contributions from both YouTube and desktop search," CFO Ruth Porat said on the earnings call. Google "other revenue" growth was driven by the company's cloud-computing business Google Cloud, its Google Play store, and hardware. 

On the call, CEO Sundar Pichai called out Google Cloud's momentum, saying the company's key wins in the quarter included Domino's Pizza, SoundCloud, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and noted that "Target is migrating three areas of its business to Google Cloud."

Revenue from "other bets" -- which contributed just 0.5% of total revenue -- continues to come primarily from the Alphabet's Fiber high-speed internet business and its Verily life science business. Other bets continues to lose money, posting an operating loss of $732 million in the quarter.

The European Commission fined Alphabet $5.1 billion

The European Commission (EC) recently fined Alphabet 4.34
billion euros, equivalent to $5.07 billion, at the end of the quarter, for what it deemed anticompetitive practices related to its mobile search business, stemming from "certain contractual provisions in agreements between Google and Android partners," according to Alphabet. The fine affected its reported, or generally accepting accounting principles (GAAP), operating and net income. The company is appealing, so the $5.1 billion figure isn't set in stone 

Adjusted operating income increased 15%

Excluding the EC fine and a similar $2.7 billion one that affected the year-ago quarter's results, operating income grew 15% year over year to $7.9 billion. On a GAAP basis (which includes fines), operating income declined 32% to $2.8 billion. 

Operating margin contracted somewhat to 24.1% from 26.4% in the year-ago quarter, because costs increased faster than revenue. Total costs of revenue, which primarily includes traffic acquisition costs increased 34% year over year. Porat said on the call. As for operating expenses, she noted the main drivers included costs associated with the cloud business, which it continues to expand; content acquisition costs, primarily for YouTube; and hardware-related costs. 

Adjusted EPS soared 32%

Net income, excluding fines, soared 32% year over year to $8.27 billion. On a per-share basis, results also increased 32%, to $11.75, which demolished Wall Street's EPS consensus of $9.59.

Including the impact of fines, net income declined 9.3% to $3.2 billion, while EPS declined 9.4% to $4.54.

Cash position on hand of about $102 billion

The company ended the quarter with approximately $102 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Couple this with its very low debt, and the company's balance sheet remains powerful.

Waymo's monetization on the late 2018 horizon

It would be remiss not to mention Alphabet's autonomous-vehicle business, Waymo, so I'm stretching the headline to include "late 2018" as a metric not to be missed. Earlier this year, the company -- which is the pioneer in this space -- announced that it will launch its first self-driving car service in Phoenix later this year. 

As Pichai said on the call, "Waymo expanded its partnership with Fiat Chrysler with the option to add up to 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica minivans to its self-driving fleet."