A recent report from 9to5Google reveals that Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) division, Google, will soon roll out public, searchable “profiles” in Search. These profiles will aggregate reviews and search notes linked to a user’s account and display them publicly. This feature will streamline users’ review management for movies and TV shows, allowing them to make, delete, or edit reviews privately.
Enhancing User Experience
Alphabet aims to enhance the user experience and functionality of its search engine with these public profiles. According to a Dataintelo report, the global search engine market is projected to reach $507.4 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 11% from 2024 to 2032. Alphabet is well-positioned to capitalize on this growth with its expanding Search initiatives.
Recent Search Enhancements
Alphabet has recently added several features to improve Search. For instance, Google Chrome now includes a “Listen to this page” text-to-speech feature, supporting multiple languages such as Arabic, Bengali, English, French, Chinese, German, Hindi, and Portuguese.
Google also introduced “Circle to Search,” allowing users to circle items on their Android screens, ask questions about images or objects in videos, and receive AI-generated insights with Lens. Additionally, Google’s focus on enhancing its Search Generative Experience (SGE), which provides AI-generated insights instead of traditional search results, is creating new opportunities for advertisers by introducing new ad formats, including Search and Shopping ads alongside SGE results.
Competitive Landscape
These efforts are expected to increase daily user activity on Search, helping Google maintain its dominance against competitors like Microsoft and Baidu, who are also enhancing their search capabilities. Microsoft benefits from its AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser, offering a better search experience, more complete answers, a new chat experience, and content generation capabilities. Baidu has improved its search engine with its AI chatbot, ERNIE Bot, which interacts with users, answers questions, assists in content creation, and efficiently provides information.
Conclusion
A robust Search portfolio, combined with strong Android and YouTube offerings, continues to drive the performance of Alphabet’s Google Services segment, a key growth driver for the company. Alphabet’s shares have surged 28.7% year-to-date, outperforming the Computer & Technology sector’s growth of 24.6%.
In Q1 2024, the Google Services segment’s revenue grew by 13.6% year-over-year to $70.4 billion, accounting for 87.4% of total revenues. The Consensus Estimate for Alphabet’s 2024 total revenues is $291.26 billion, reflecting a 13.6% increase year-over-year. The consensus estimate for 2024 earnings is $7.60 per share, indicating a 31.03% rise from the previous year, with an 11.92% upward revision in the past 60 days.
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