Alphabet's Waymo Expands Globally Amid Significant Operating Losses in Other Bets Segment
Alphabet's 'Other Bets' segment, headlined by autonomous driving unit Waymo, reported $372 million in third-quarter revenue, representing only 0.3% of the company's total sales. Despite an 8% year-over-year revenue increase, the segment saw operating losses widen to $2.05 billion, up from $1.43 billion in the previous year. Waymo is aggressively expanding its footprint, recently launching services in San Antonio, San Diego, and Tampa, with upcoming international expansions planned for Canada, Germany, Singapore, and Spain. While Waymo maintains a dominant position in the U.S. robotaxi market, it faces growing competition from Tesla, Amazon's Zoox, and Baidu's Apollo Go. The financial strain of these ventures comes at a time when Alphabet is heavily investing in AI infrastructure, resulting in negative free cash flow of over $9 billion for the quarter. This high capital expenditure environment contributed to an earnings miss that saw Alphabet shares drop nearly 10% in extended trading.
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Topics: Alphabet Q3 earnings Autonomous vehicles Other Bets operating losses Waymo expansion