Google parent Alphabet's earnings fall short of expectations
Google's parent company Alphabet reported financial results below analyst expectations for the first three months of 2016, but could still point to revenue for the period of more than 20 billion US dollars (£13.9bn).
Narrowly missing analyst revenue predictions of 20.38 billion US dollars (£14.2bn), the technology giant revealed that revenue for the three months to March 31 was in fact 20.25 billion (£14.1bn) - a fall of 5% on the previous quarter, when those results briefly saw the company become the world's most valuable corporation.
However, the latest figures still recorded an increase in revenue of 17% on the same period last year.
This was the second set of financial results to be reported under the new structure of the US-based technology giant, with Alphabet as the parent company of Google, and their results shown separately to the so-called Other Bets - the company's more ambitious projects including their driverless car prototypes and WiFi signal-carrying weather balloons.
This area of the business continued to lose money, announcing operating losses for the quarter of 802 million US dollars (£559m), despite doubling revenue, but Alphabet said it remained positive.
Alphabet's chief financial officer Ruth Porat said of the latest figures: "Our Q1 results represent a tremendous start to the year with 17% revenue growth year on year and 23% growth on a constant currency basis.
"We're thoughtfully pursuing big bets and building exciting new technologies, in Google and our Other Bets, that position us well for long term growth."
On Wednesday, Google was reprimanded by the European Commission after a year-long investigation claimed it had found evidence of anti-competitive behaviour by Google over the promotion of their own apps within the Android mobile operating system which it operates, something Google denies.
The Google segment of Alphabet did however report a rise in income to 6.27 billion US dollars (£4.3bn) in the latest financial statement.
