Google's advertising business defies AI rivals and Trump's tariffs + New Intel boss announces 'painful decisions' + Procter & Gamble lowers forecast + Pepsico cuts profit target due to tariff dispute + Evotec beckons with 75 million dollars from research alliance with Bristol-Myers Squibb
Google's $GOOGL (-1.98%)Advertising business defies AI rivals and Trump's tariffs
- Google's online advertising business continues to grow - despite competition from new AI rivals.
- In the past quarter, advertising revenue rose by 8.5 percent year-on-year to just under 66.9 billion dollars (58.9 billion euros).
- This was slightly above analysts' expectations.
- The share price rose by 4.6 percent at times in after-hours trading.
- Advertising at Google continues to generate the majority of the parent company Alphabet's revenues.
- The development of the advertising business is being monitored very closely.
- A key question is whether attempts by competitors to use artificial intelligence to display direct answers instead of links will leave a mark on Google's search engine.
- Meanwhile, Google itself is moving in this direction with AI-generated overviews of search queries.
- These "AI overviews" currently reach 1.5 billion users per month, said CEO Sundar Pichai.
- AI is also increasingly being used in another area at Google.
- "Significantly more" than 30 percent of the software code - the millions of lines of program code behind Google services - is now pre-formulated by artificial intelligence and taken over by humans, said Pichai.
- In the past, this was mainly manual work for programmers.
- There was also an unusual factor behind the strong increase in profits: the revaluation of the stake in a company not listed on the stock exchange contributed eight billion dollars, it was said.
- A name was not mentioned - but according to the Bloomberg financial service, this is Elon Musk's space company SpaceX.
- According to the report, the internet company participated in a SpaceX financing round a decade ago.
New Intel boss $INTC (-0.92%)announces 'painful decisions'
- The new CEO of the crisis-ridden chip company Intel has announced "painful decisions" and the prospect of job cuts just a few weeks after taking office.
- Intel must reduce costs and remove bureaucratic hurdles, said Lip-Bu Tan after the presentation of quarterly figures.
- He emphasized that this would also involve cutting jobs.
- Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner said at the same time that Intel could not yet give any figures on the extent of the job cuts.
- The company also wants to reduce costs in other ways.
- The financial service Bloomberg recently reported that Intel could soon announce the reduction of around a fifth of its jobs.
- The number of Intel employees had already fallen to just under 109,000 by the end of last year from a good 124,000 at the end of September.
- Intel once dominated the semiconductor market, but has been struggling with problems for years.
- Graphics card specialist Nvidia has conquered a leading position, particularly in the business with chips for artificial intelligence.
- Intel is also under greater pressure in its traditional business with PC processors and chips for data centers.
- Intel disappointed investors with its sales forecast for the current quarter.
- The shares fell by a good five percent in after-hours trading.
- Intel forecast revenues of between 11.2 and 12.4 billion dollars for the second quarter. Analysts had expected an average forecast of around 12.8 billion dollars.
- From the investors' point of view, this weighed more heavily than the results of the first quarter, in which Intel exceeded market expectations.
- Sales stagnated at 12.7 billion dollars, while analysts had expected a decline to 12.3 billion dollars on average.
- At the bottom line, the loss of 800 million dollars was twice as high as a year ago.
- However, Intel's adjusted earnings per share of 0.13 dollars clearly exceeded analysts' forecasts of just 0.01 dollars.
Procter & Gamble $PG (+1.18%)lowers forecast
- The gloomy consumer sentiment and the ongoing trade disputes are making the consumer goods group Procter & Gamble more pessimistic for the current financial year.
- The company lowered its sales and profit forecasts when presenting its figures for the third financial quarter.
- The company announced in Cincinnati on Thursday that revenue in the 2024/25 financial year (as at the end of June) is likely to grow organically by only around two percent.
- Previously, the Group had forecast growth of three to five percent.
- This excludes currency and portfolio effects.
- Adjusted earnings per share are also likely to increase less than expected.
- Procter & Gamble now expects growth of two to four percent instead of five to seven percent.
- CFO Andre Schulten had already reported in February that deliveries to retailers had slowed down - the manager warned at the time that the company could miss its profit forecast.
- He also pointed to a decline in consumption in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, which he attributed to the "anti-Western sentiment" prevailing there.
- Analysts had already expected earnings per share to be below the previous Group forecast, but Procter & Gamble has now cut its profit expectations even more sharply than expected.
- In the third quarter, sales fell by two percent to 19.8 billion US dollars (around 17.4 billion euros), as the company also announced.
- In organic terms, revenue grew slightly by one percent.
- However, this was less than analysts had expected.
- At 3.8 billion dollars, net profit was roughly on a par with the previous year.
- Adjusted earnings per share increased by one percent to 1.54 dollars.
Pepsico $PEP (-1.16%)cuts profit target due to customs dispute
- The US food company Pepsico expects lower profits than before this year due to the global customs dispute.
- Pepsico announced on Thursday that earnings per share adjusted for special effects (core EPS), excluding currency effects, are likely to remain at around the previous year's level.
- Originally, Pepsico had targeted an increase in the mid-single-digit percentage range.
- Sales, on the other hand, are expected to continue to grow organically in the low single-digit percentage range.
- The tariffs are likely to make supply chains more expensive, complained Pepsico CEO Ramon Laguarta according to the press release.
- Pepsico is trying to counteract the higher costs.
- However, volatility and uncertainty are likely to increase.
- At the same time, consumer sentiment remains weak in many regions - here, too, the outlook is uncertain.
- In the twelve weeks to March 22, Pepsico missed analysts' expectations.
- Sales fell by 1.8 percent to 17.92 billion US dollars (15.74 billion euros) compared to the same period last year.
- Net income attributable to shareholders fell by around ten percent to 1.83 billion dollars.
Evotec $EVT (-0.22%)will receive 75 million dollars from research alliance with Bristol-Myers Squibb $BMY (-1.17%)
- For the Hamburg-based drug researcher and developer Evotec, the long-term collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb is paying off.
- The Hanseatic company announced on Thursday that it had made significant progress in the field of protein degradation.
- Evotec will therefore now receive a total of 75 million dollars in accordance with the agreement.
- The news was well received on the stock market, with the share price rising by almost four percent in pre-market trading.
- Evotec has been working with Bristol-Myers Squibb since 2018 and extended the partnership in 2022.
Friday: Stock market dates, economic data, quarterly figures
Stock exchange holiday Australia
- ex-dividend of individual stocks
- ENGIE EUR 1.48
- Semperit Holding EUR 0.50
- ABN AMRO Bank 0.75 EUR
- BE Semiconductor Industries EUR 2.18
- Quarterly figures / company dates USA / Asia
- 13:00 Colgate-Palmolive quarterly figures
- 13:45 Abbvie quarterly figures
- Quarterly figures / Company dates Europe
- 07:00 Nordex | Südzucker | Safran | Signify quarterly figures | Holcim Trading Update 1Q
- 07:30 Atoss Software quarterly figures
- 08:00 Yara | Palfinger quarterly figures
- 10:00 Bayer | Continental | Merck KGaA AGM | Holcim Analyst Conference
- 14:00 Nordex Conference Call | Akzo Nobel AGM
- Economic data
08:00 DE: Construction industry, new orders and sales February
08:00 UK: Retail Sales March FORECAST: -0.4% yoy/+1.6% yoy previous: +1.0% yoy/+2.2% yoy
08:45 FR: Business Climate Index April FORECAST: 96 previous: 96
16:00 US: Consumer Sentiment Index Uni Michigan (2nd survey) April FORECAST: 50.8 1st survey: 50.8 PREV: 57.0
16:15 US: Atlantic Council, fireside chat with member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, Greene
19:30 US: IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, IMF Steering Committee (IMFC) press conference.
