The share price of Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL) lost nearly 6.5% after another solid portion of its quarterly earnings. This correction has followed disappointing ad segment revenues. The real question is how much it is justified. Google advertising numbers are now 11% higher YoY. The company posted $59 billion of ad revenue in the ending quarter of 2022, and it managed to climb to a record at $65.52 billion for the Q4 2023. The only troubling point is that the current great achievements are slightly shying away from preliminary expert consensus estimates of $66.1 billion, according to LSEG data. We strongly believe that's the right time to say that this is not the fault of Google. Thus, we continue with our classical Buy & Hold view as applied to this particular investment opportunity. The same pool of experts paraded their disappointment at the end of October when all the details of the Q3 report were nearly perfect, except a little bit lower than expected growth in the cloud segment. That was enough for GOOGL to dive from the area of $140 to test much deeper levels around $120 in just three days, yet the further full recovery took less than one month to lead the price to new all-time highs at $153.50 within a couple of months. Thus, we would bet for history to repeat.

"[O]ngoing strength in Search and the growing contribution from YouTube and Cloud. Each of these is already benefiting from our AI investments and innovation," the company CEOs commented on the numbers, as Google Search segment rose by 13%, YouTube added more than 15.5%, and Google Cloud was up 26% YoY. Some lower yet still great advertising sales should not overshadow other results of Google's artificial intelligence and the cloud expansion efforts.

Meanwhile, overall revenue of Google in Q4 reached its new historical high of $86.3 billion vs average estimates of $85.3 billion, while quarterly EPS (equity per share) also set a new record at $1.64 vs $1.59 of consensus estimates, against $1.55 in Q3, $1.44 in Q2 and $1.05 in Q4 2022. The growth corresponds to the profit rise by 14% for the last two quarters and a 56% jump YoY. This looks more than enough for our full satisfaction with the latest business results.