Google, in Rare Stumble, Posts 23% Decline in Profit – The New York Times, The New York Times

SEATTLE – Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said on Monday that its quarterly profit fell 23 percent after it sharply increased spending, in a rare financial stumble by the tech giant .

Alphabetreported that its revenuerose 20 percent to $ 40 .5 billion for the third quarter, but that profit dropped to $ 7. 07 billion. Profit, which came in below Wall Street expectations, was hurt by rising costs for research and development and marketing, the company reported.

In after-hours trading, Alphabet’s stock declined 2 percent.

The performance demonstrated the challenges of trying to maintain growth at the company. While advertising, rooted in the dominance of Google’s internet search engine, has sustained Alphabet’s bottom line in recent years, that business isn’t growing as fast as it once did. Google is also facing new competition for marketing dollars from Amazon and others.

Alphabet faces other challenges. Google issquarely in the sights of regulatorsand politicians who want to take down a monopoly. Its employees have been unhappy with management, political conservatives accuse the company of bias andYouTube has been under attackfor spreading misinformation.