LIVE BLOG: Alphabet Q2 2018 earnings call

• After-market hours, stock is up 5% at 5:30 PM ET at $1,257.99
• In terms of the investment priorities, Alphabet believes the biggest opportunity for investment continues to be in the Ads business
• In the emerging markets, Alphabet is seeing good user growth across its major products (products with over a 1 billion users each)
• Q&A Starts
• In the second quarter, unit sales of managed Chromebooks grew by more than 175%.
• Maps saw strong growth in countries like Indonesia, India and Nigeria, growing over 50% year-on-year
• Through the improvements in machine learning, Alphabet saw a 25x increase in its ability to build maps algorithmically
• Sundar Pichai takes over the call
• Continues to expect expenses to be heavily weighted towards 2H18 to support the holiday season
• Looking ahead, hardware business would see lower growth in third quarter, anticipating launch of new products for the holiday season
• Google segment revenues jumped 25% YoY, boosted by mobile search, with substantial contributions from YouTube and desktop search
• In the product areas, most sizable headcount increases were in cloud for technical and sales roles
• The stock pops 5% on earnings beat
• Ruth Porat starts the call

Related: Alphabet Q2 earnings jump on strong revenue growth

Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) reported strong earnings growth in the second quarter, aided by a marked increase in advertising revenues. Net income, excluding fines, climbed to $8.27 billion or $11.75 per share from $6.26 billion or $8.90 per share in the same period last year. Earnings, including fines, dropped 9% to $4.54 per share. Driving the earnings growth, revenues jumped 26% annually to $32.66 billion.