Google's ad sales fall short of Wall Street's lofty expectations

Stock declines despite rebound in advertising

- Miles Kruppa

Google's advertising sales fell short of Wall Street's expectations, sending shares tumbling despite strong growth in other areas of the search giant's business.

Google recorded $65.5 billion of total advertising sales in the fourth quarter, an increase of 11% from the same period last year. Those financial results missed analyst expectations but were a marked turnaround from a year ago, when Google reported its first drop in ad revenue since the beginning of the pandemic.

Alphabet, parent company of Google, reported fourth-quarter revenue of $86.3 billion, up more than 13% from the same period last year. The results marked the company's fourth straight quarter of accelerating sales growth. Google's ad and cloud-computing businesses have faced heightened scrutiny following recent earnings reports, as the company attempts to overcome the perception that it has fallen behind rivals in artificial intelligence while trying to maintain business growth.