INSTANT VIEW: Google, IBM beat expectations
LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc's quarterly profit beat Wall Street expectations but its revenue growth was not as stellar as some investors had hoped, sending shares down 2 percent.
Also on Thursday, IBM reported a 13 percent slide in revenue as corporate spending fell, but cost cuts and a shift to more profitable businesses helped it trump earnings expectations.
The company raised its profit outlook for the full year, helping send its shares higher.
COMMENTARY:
LAXMI PORURI, ANALYST, PRIMARY GLOBAL RESEARCH
"They did decently, but obviously it's not high enough for the Street. We expected some slowness for a couple of reasons: one is that in the first quarter, we saw some click-through rates go down a bit, and there is definitely a bit of lag time between when that happens and what advertisers do.
"And the other thing is, there was definitely some weakness in pharma spending earlier in the quarter because some of the pharma companies got punished (by regulators) a bit in their search practices. They had to cut down on search spending and some of the companies haven't ramped up again."
MIKE HOLLAND, CHAIRMAN, HOLLAND & CO
"There was outperformance on the bottom line, but the top line was also solid. The stock seems to be trading down here. But they were in line with heightened expectations that I had.
"In a challenging world, I am happy to be an owner here."
RICHARD FETYKO, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MERRIMAN CURHAN FORD
"The top line is in line with consensus. But on the bottom-lime they seem to have crushed" expectations.
"The unspoken anticipation (on revenue) was perhaps slightly better than that.
"It doesn't seem like things are turning around per se. But the revenue per click -- an indication of advertisers' appetite for clicks and for advertising -- was up sequentially, so you can assume that in terms of ad budgets out there, we probably reached a bottom some time in the first quarter.
"What we need now is rebound in consumer spending." Continued...
