Alphabet is burning cash. Samsung is collecting it
Wall Street is arguing over Google’s AI spending. Now what will Asia’s chipmakers do with the windfall?
SUNDAR Pichai led with the biggest number he had. Alphabet, he said in a statement released after Wednesday’s (Oct 28) closing bell, was “now on a half-trillion dollar revenue run rate”. Google Cloud revenue had doubled to US$30.7 billion; the Gemini app had passed a billion users.
Within the hour, none of it mattered. The shares slid from US$322 to around US$288 in after-hours trading, erasing roughly US$400 billion of market value, as reported earnings fell well short of forecasts.
During the call, Anat Ashkenazi, the finance chief, reported US$51.4 billion of capital expenditure in three months and free cash flow of minus US$9.1 billion, against the minus US$2.7 billion analysts had pencilled in, and said spending would “increase significantly in 2027”.
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