Google Profit Down On Hefty EU Fine

(RTTNews) - Alphabet Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL), the parent company of Google, Thursday said its profit for the second quarter dropped from a year ago hurt largely by a hefty fine imposed by European regulators.

Alphabet's second-quarter profit dropped to $3.52 billion or $5.01 per share from $4.88 billion or $7.00 per share last year.

During the second quarter, the company recorded a huge fine of $2.7 billion from European Commission. Excluding one-time items, earnings for the quarter were $6.26 billion or $8.90 per share. On average, 19 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $4.83 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter grew 21 percent to $26.01 billion from $21.50 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $25.60 billion.

The company said aggregate paid clicks increased 52 percent year-over-year and 12 percent from last quarter. Paid clicks on Google websites jumped 61 from last year and 15 percent from previous quarter.

Meanwhile, aggregate cost-per-click dropped 23 percent from a year ago and 6 percent from prior quarter.

"With revenues of $26 billion, up 21% versus the second quarter of 2016 and 23% on a constant currency basis, we're delivering strong growth with great underlying momentum, while continuing to make focused investments in new revenue streams," said Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet.

The European Commission slapped Google with $2.74 billion in fine for anti-trust violations related to the search engine giant's favoritism towards its online shopping service over competitors.

GOOG closed Monday's trading at $980.34, up $7.42 or 0.76%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further dropped $25.84 or 2.64% in the after-hours trade.