Google CEO coy on when cloud performance will be revealed

Parent company Alphabet disappoints investors with Q1 results, but insists cloud business is on track

Google parent company Alphabet has disappointed the market with its Q1 results but insisted that its enterprise cloud business remains on track.

For the three months ending 31 March 2018, Alphabet saw sales rise 17 per cent to $36.3bn (£27.9bn).

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is grouped with "other" areas of the business including hardware and the Google Play app store. This division saw revenue increase 25 per cent to $5.4bn.

On an earnings call, transcribed by Seeking Alpha, CEO Sundar Pichai was asked by an analyst when cloud figures will be revealed, but remained coy.

"Thomas [Kurian, Google Cloud CEO] is really building on a strong foundation, but we are really accelerating and scaling up go-to-market both internally and through our channel partners has been a huge focus," he said.

"I think we are building a strong business across all our verticals, and we are definitely are seeing a strong momentum, and look forward to being able to share more at the appropriate time."

Amazon Web Services is the only one of the big three to report sales figures, reporting a Q1 revenue of $7.7bn last week.

Canalys estimates that Google saw cloud sales of $2.3bn in Q1, behind a $3.4bn estimate for Microsoft Azure.

Google has talked up its enterprise play over recent weeks, driven by the appointment of new CEO Kurian, who was most recently leading Oracle's cloud operation.

Elsewhere in Alphabet, a slowing of ad sales was seen as the primary driver for a dip in the firm's share price.

Ad revenue was up 15 per cent to $30.7bn.

Alphabet's share price fell more than seven per cent in after-hours trading.