Google Ad Revenue Expected to Drop for Second Straight Quarter

Google is expected to report a second straight drop in advertising revenue, extending a rare decline as the company battles economic uncertainty and tries to capitalize on recent advances in artificial intelligence. Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, is expected to report $53.7 billion in ad revenue for the first quarter, a drop of 1.8% from the same period last year, according to the consensus estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet. Alphabet’s total revenue is expected to increase by 1.3% from last year to $68.9 billion in the first quarter, aided by continued growth in the company’s cloud-computing unit. Google’s video platform YouTube is expected to report $6.6 billion of ads revenue in the first quarter, a decrease of 4% from the previous year and the third straight quarterly drop in sales. Sales in Google’s cloud-computing division are expected to increase 28% from the same period last year to $7.5 billion in the first quarter, a slower pace of growth compared with the fourth quarter.