Alphabet (GOOGL) Stock Advances, Cloud Business Boosted

Alphabet (GOOGL) shares are increasing on Friday after the Internet giant named cloud-computing veteran Diane B. Greene to head its cloud team and announced that it's acquiring Bebop Technologies.
By U-Jin Lee ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Alphabet (GOOGL) - Get Report  shares are increasing 0.87% to $766.53 on Friday after the Internet giant named cloud-computing veteran Diane B. Greene to head its cloud team and announced that it's acquiring Bebop Technologies, a cloud software company that Ms. Greene co-founded.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

Co-founder and former CEO of VMWare (VMW) - Get Report with numerous years of experience under her belt, Greene was praised by Google. The company added that she will be senior VP for Google's enterprise businesses and that there is "no better person to lead this important area." 

From this announcement, it's evident that the company is getting more serious about its cloud business, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Additionally, Google, part of Alphabet, is planning to launch the China version of its Google Play next year, Reuters reports. Google Play is the app store for Android smartphones and tablets. 

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates ALPHABET INC as a Buy with a ratings score of B+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

We rate ALPHABET INC (GOOGL) a BUY. This is driven by a number of strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its compelling growth in net income, revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, solid stock price performance and reasonable valuation levels. Although no company is perfect, currently we do not see any significant weaknesses which are likely to detract from the generally positive outlook.

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

  • The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has greatly exceeded that of the S&P 500, but is less than that of the Internet Software & Services industry average. The net income increased by 45.3% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, rising from $2,739.00 million to $3,979.00 million.
  • Despite its growing revenue, the company underperformed as compared with the industry average of 15.1%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 13.0%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.
  • Although GOOGL's debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05 is very low, it is currently higher than that of the industry average. Along with this, the company maintains a quick ratio of 4.51, which clearly demonstrates the ability to cover short-term cash needs.
  • Powered by its strong earnings growth of 34.82% and other important driving factors, this stock has surged by 35.51% over the past year, outperforming the rise in the S&P 500 Index during the same period. Regarding the stock's future course, although almost any stock can fall in a broad market decline, GOOGL should continue to move higher despite the fact that it has already enjoyed a very nice gain in the past year.
  • You can view the full analysis from the report here: GOOGL
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