US economic worries
“Like everyone, we definitely see uncertainty in the future,” Pichai said in an interview with the media at Google’s I/O developer conference on Wednesday. “The good thing is that our company is not short. We have experienced 2008, and we have also experienced the initial stage of the epidemic, so we have a long-term view.”
He also predicted that the U.S. economy “will take time to resolve” the currentQualcommswell.
“There are many different factors involved in the uncertainty, including supply chain issues, including rising energy prices,” Pichai said.
“I do think some industries have eased,” he said, referring specifically to tourism, “but other new areas are starting to have problems, probably because of supply chain constraints … energy prices are also very problematic. In some places, rent and food prices have gone up.”
NasdaqIt was on the verge of the worst quarterly drop since 2008, at a time when the U.S. economy was going through a housing crisis. Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday showed that the U.S. CPI rose 8.3% in April, not only higher than expected, but even close to a 40-year high of 8.5%.
Fears of inflation and rising interest rates have led investors to sell stocks for the safety of safer assets. Affected by this, the stock price of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has fallen by about 22% this year, and the entire technology sector cannot escape the decline.
Alphabet’s latest earnings, reported in late April, fell short of analysts’ expectations, largely because the entire digital advertising industry faced headwinds in the first quarter, resulting in YouTube’s results that fell sharply below expectations. YouTube’s advertising revenue in Europe began to decline after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict erupted in February, executives pointed out.
“Obviously, when you have an ad business spread across the economy, a lot of macro factors like GDP end up having an impact on what advertisers spend,” Pichai said.
The economic outlook is not all bleak, he said. According to comments made by Alphabet chief commercial officer Philipp Schindler last month, Pichai noted that the turnover has started again, an important signal for Google’s core advertising division.
“We do see a recovery in tourism,” Pichai said. “There are signs that people are moving after the pandemic, so it’s starting to get back to normal. But the uncertainty is there are many factors, like supply chains or energy prices. Up. So when you take that into consideration, you still have an uncertain environment.”
Contrarian investment development
Pichai noted that the company’s technology investments are key to keeping its business strong in a weak economic environment, and there are no signs that Google plans to slow hiring or shrink its business in one area.
“We want to be resilient in this environment. The opportunities ahead are exciting. So we keep investing, keep hiring, bring in great people. There are also areas that are going through long-term transformation, like cloud computing and digital transformation. So we we will continue to invest.”
Despite economic uncertainty and market volatility, Alphabet increased its R&D spending in the first quarter by 22% year over year to $9.1 billion.
He also mentioned that the company’s diverse business mix was an important source of its strong performance.
“We’ve invested in the underlying technology, we’ve been in a lot of areas. So in some ways we’re a diversified business. Obviously, we have important products like search and YouTube. We also have computing products like Android, Play and hardware devices. Cloud computing also presents a huge opportunity. So I think we’re in a lot of areas. We’re in these areas as a company on a global scale, which allows us to take a long-term view of these phases.”
Google announced the new smart phone at its I/O developer conference on Wednesdaycell phone, also demonstrated augmented reality technology that uses artificial intelligence technology to translate speech into text in real time and display it on a screen.Facebookparent company Meta andMicrosoftAugmented reality devices are also being developed.
In a fast-moving market, Google has to invest to keep up with rivals, especially with the rise of short-video service TikTok, which is popular among young people. YouTube Shorts, which Google launched in response to TikTok, has grown rapidly, with more than 30 billion daily views as of the end of April, up from 15 billion in January.
“We have to respond to user needs,” Pichai said. “We’re trying to provide the best experience for our users, so there’s an incentive to improve the product.”
He also mentionedSnapchat、Pinterestand other products, “these things didn’t even exist a few years ago,” while the smartphone and mobile ecosystem are creating all kinds of new opportunities.
“We’re always flexible and have to adapt, and I feel that way every Monday when I come to work,” he said.
aboutTwitterprivatization
Pichai also talked about balancing free speech and content moderation on the internet, which has been brought back into focus by Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter.
“I grew up in a huge democracy where freedom of speech and giving people a voice is very important, and I think that’s the fundamental issue,” said Pichai, who was born in India. “Search represents what’s on the web today, we only Illegal content will be removed.”
He added: “In a product like YouTube, we’re giving advice to users, we’re amplifying our content, we’re creating community guidelines. So we have very clear policies. We’re also taking some action. Maximizing freedom of speech creates a safe environment for everyone on the platform.”
He also mentioned how the company moderates content: “I think there has to be transparency for people. There are many ways to do that. For example, we publish a community code, or in the search business, we also publicly disclose how we evaluate it. Search quality.” He added, “I think it’s important to keep spammers and others trying to get around product regulations out of the way.”
Referring to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, Pichai said: “I’m an avid Twitter user. I think it’s a very important product for the world. I get a lot out of it. Invest in him for the long term. It’s valuable…it’s important because it plays an important role in a democratic society…I want to see this product get better and better.”
