TNB Tech Minute: Alphabet Shares Down After Cloud Unit Disappoints
WSJ Tech News Briefing
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Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Tuesday, February 4th. I'm Pierre Bien-Aimé for The Wall Street Journal. Google recorded a slowdown in revenue growth in its most recent quarter. Its parent company, Alphabet, reported $96.5 billion of revenue for the three months ending December. That's an increase of 12 percent from the same period a year earlier, but Alphabet hasn't reported a growth rate that low since 2023.
Shares in Alphabet were down roughly 7% in after-hours trading, pairing much of this year's gains of about 8%. Google's cloud computing division underperformed Wall Street analysts' expectations. Executives have been hoping it can help make up for slowing growth in Google's core advertising business.
alongside a money-making fourth quarter, Spotify reported its first ever full year of profitability. Net income was equivalent to about $1.18 billion in 2024, compared with a loss of roughly $552 million the previous year. The Swedish company was fueled by record user growth and austerity measures after years of heavy spending on growth initiatives such as podcasts. Shares in the company rose just over 13.2 percent and are up about 35 percent on the year. Media
Meanwhile, music publishers are asking Spotify to remove thousands of unlicensed songs from podcasts on its platform. The National Music Publishers Association, a trade group, said today it sent notice of more than 2,500 instances of infringement to the streaming service, alleging that songs are being used without permission or compensation. A Spotify spokesman responded, quote, "...we will act promptly and, where appropriate, remove the episodes in question."
Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has a content partnership with Spotify. And Okta, the digital identity verification provider, will cut its workforce by about 3 percent, or 180 employees. As of January 31st, the San Francisco company had roughly 5,900 employees, two-thirds of which were in the U.S. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Wednesday's Tech News Briefing podcast.