Google's New Spending Surge Shows a Company Playing Catch-Up
- Heavy investment seen in cloud, devices to chase Amazon, Apple
- Results suggest giant has so far shrugged off privacy backlash
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Alphabet Inc.’s first-quarter results came with a clear message to Wall Street: The company is embarking on a new spending binge to chase its biggest rivals.
Google’s parent posted the strongest sales growth in almost four years on Monday, indicating marketers kept flocking to its services amid rising scrutiny of digital ads. But the company also spent at historic levels, nearly tripling capital expenditure for the quarter to $7.7 billion.