Google Beats on Earnings But Cloud Slows, Stock Drops After Hours

Google's Q3 2023 earnings beat analysts' estimates, but cloud revenue growth slowed to 22.5% and missed expectations, causing stock to drop after hours.

Google's ad revenue beat forecasts at $59.65B, but cloud revenue of $8.41B was below estimate of $8.62B.

Growth in Google's ads business was driven by retail sector in search and brand/direct response ads on YouTube.

AI initiatives fueled over $8B in capital expenditures, focused on servers, data centers, and tech infrastructure.

Google has slowed hiring pace and redeployed staff internally as part of cost restructuring efforts.