Google Cloud revenue grew 103% last quarter. Alphabet's shares fell 12.6% the day after it reported.
Two numbers explain it. Free cash flow went to minus $9.1bn, on $51bn of capex in the quarter. And Search, still twice the size of Cloud, slowed from 19% growth to 17% to 12% in three quarters. It's still growing, and Alphabet points to currency as the biggest factor, but it missed estimates.
Meanwhile Meta's ad revenue grew 26%, against about 11% across Google's ad businesses. Emarketer has Google's share of digital ad spend falling since 2021, and forecast Meta passing it this year.
Microsoft grew Azure 48% and still generated about $18.6bn of free cash flow, and it avoided the sell-off. Amazon grew AWS 39%, with trailing free cash flow at minus $42.4bn, and fell about 7% before Friday's open.
Cloud is the number everyone quotes. Ads and cash are what the market priced.