Operator
Operator
Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Alphabet Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Ellen West, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Alphabet Inc. (GOOG)
Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Fri, Oct 26, 2018
$348.25
+0.26%
Same-Day
-4.80%
1 Week
-1.27%
1 Month
+1.38%
vs S&P
-2.10%
Operator
Operator
Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Alphabet Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Ellen West, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Ellen West
Head of Investor Relations
Thank you. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Alphabet's third quarter 2018 earnings conference call. With us today are Ruth Porat and Sundar Pichai. Now I'll quickly cover the safe harbor. Some of the statements that we make today may be considered forward looking including statements regarding our future investments, our long-term growth and innovation, the expected performance of our businesses and our expected level of capital expenditures. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our Form 10-K for 2017 filed with the SEC. Undue reliance should not be placed on any forward-looking statements and they are made based on assumptions as of today. We undertake no obligation to update them. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release. As you know we distribute our earnings release through our Investor Relations website located at abc.xyz/investor. This call is also being webcast from our IR website where a replay of the call will be available later today. And now I'll turn the call over to Ruth.
Ruth Porat
Management
Thank you, Ellen. Our revenues in the third quarter continued to benefit from ongoing strength in mobile search with important contributions from YouTube, cloud and desktop search, resulting in consolidated revenues of $33.7 billion, up 21% year-on-year and up 22% in constant currency. For today's call, I will begin with the results for the quarter on a consolidated basis for Alphabet focusing on year-over-year changes. I will then review results for Google followed by Other Bets and will conclude with our outlook. Sundar will then discuss business and product highlights after which we will take your questions. Starting with a summary of Alphabet's consolidated financial performance for the quarter, our total revenues of $33.7 billion reflect a negative currency impact year-over-year of $385 million or $305 million after the impact of our hedging program. Turning to Alphabet revenues by geography, you can see that our performance was strong again in all regions. U.S. revenues were $15.5 billion, up 20% year-over-year. EMEA revenues were $11 billion, up 20% year-over-year. In constant currency terms EMEA grew 19%. APAC revenues were $5.4 billion, up 29% versus last year and up 30% in constant currency. Other Americas revenues were $1.8 billion, up 19% year-over-year and up 28% in constant currency, reflecting weakening of the Brazilian real and the Argentine peso. On a consolidated basis, total cost of revenues including TAC, which I'll discuss in the Google segment results, was $14.3 billion, up 28% year-on-year. Other cost of revenues on a consolidated basis was $7.7 billion, up 36% year-over-year, primarily driven by Google-related expenses. The key drivers were costs associated with our data centers and other operations including depreciation which continue to be affected by a reallocation of certain operating expenses and content acquisition costs, primarily for YouTube. Operating expenses were $11.1 billion, up 26%…
Sundar Pichai
Management
Thanks, Ruth. We had a great quarter, and it was particularly special because last month, we celebrated Google's 20th birthday and the 10th birthday of Chrome. It's exciting to think that 20 years in, we are still just at the beginning of what's possible. We get billions of questions from users every day and about 15% of those are queries we have never seen before. Our mission to make the world's information accessible and useful is as relevant today as when we started. I want to begin by highlighting our recently launched family of hardware. It's a great example of how we bring together Google's strengths to help people through their day. Then I'll touch on ways AI is helping us approach our mission. I'll give an update on our video and advertising platforms. And finally, I'll talk about our growing cloud business. First, hardware. Every year, we have a new opportunity to push the boundaries of computing. Those experiences come to life in our Made by Google hardware, which combines the latest advances in software, hardware and AI. Our third generation is our best yet. It includes the Pixel 3, Google Home Hub, the Pixel Slate tablet and more. We're getting great feedback, and I'm very excited for users to try these devices, especially as the holiday season approaches. Our new hardware lineup showcases the best of Google, including the Google Assistant, Android and Chrome. With the Pixel 3, we've used AI to create a best-in-class camera. New features like top shot make it so you never miss a shot. If your timing wasn't perfect, the camera will suggest a better frame and give you the option to save it. And Night Sight will help you take really good pictures even in bad light. Pixel 3 also has a…
Ruth Porat
Management
Thank you, Sundar, and we will now take your questions.
Operator
Operator
And our first question comes from Eric Sheridan of UBS. Your line is now open.
Eric J. Sheridan
Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open
Thanks for taking the question. Maybe two for Sundar if I can. Referencing the blog post and some of the changes about how you see the future of search, I wanted to know what some of the key investments you think the company needs to make so that search becomes more visual or relevant and what that might mean tying it back to the business for engagement with your products relevant to that medium to long term. And then with respect to your comments on YouTube, we're starting to hear from advertisers that there is some blurring between brand and direct response ad budgets as they look at products maybe more across blended lines. It sounds like the YouTube announcements coming out of Adweek were about making YouTube more responsive or more direct response. How are you thinking about the blurring of those lines and what it means for product development long term? Thanks so much.
Sundar Pichai
Management
Thanks, Eric. I'll take the two. The first on search. You're right that search, we are always trying to anticipate what the user experience expectations are and trying to meet them there. And increasingly in mobile, people do want immersive engaging experiences. They want their experiences to be more visual and that's partly what you saw us announce in our 20th birthday event. And we are excited to move in that direction. And I do think we have a lot of important assets to bring here. YouTube is a big part of what we do. We are investing in image search and we do have products like Google Maps and Photos which all add to the visual experience. And as part of doing that, we are investing in our advertising offerings as well. And so over time, we'll adapt that so they go hand-in-hand. But I think it's an important evolution for us. In terms of YouTube, I think part of what makes YouTube great is I think we can offer different opportunities for advertisers. We've always felt direct response is something that can work well on YouTube. And our instinct is bearing out. And I look at my personal use cases that are many times now sometimes instead of search, actually find something I want to do in YouTube, maybe thinking about going to a place. And I research it on YouTube. So I think it offers the same opportunity over time. And from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we are evolving the product to bring those opportunities to advertisers. So I'm very excited by it.
Eric J. Sheridan
Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open
Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Dan Salmon of BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Daniel Salmon
Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open
Good afternoon, everyone. Sundar, two questions for you. First, earlier this month or it might have been late last month, Sridhar Ramaswamy, your Head of Ads and Commerce left to go to a VC firm. I'm betting that wasn't a surprise to you, but I'm just hoping you could shed a little light on sort of succession planning for that important role and whether or not you expect any sort of broad changes to ad product strategy. And then second, just amongst those announcements on the anniversary were the evolution of Feed to Discover. And I recognize that's an evolution of a product, but it does look like you're taking advantage of that long unused white space on google.com. And so, just love to hear a little bit more, just sort of a follow-up on Eric's question on the evolution of search, but how you see that surface in particular evolving and particularly the potential for ad monetization over time. Thanks.
Sundar Pichai
Management
Good. On the first one, look I mean we, one of the things I'm really proud about Google is we have a deep bench of talent and for example in the ads team almost all of our senior ads leadership has been here for well over a decade. And so for us, we are fortunate to be able to tap into it. Our ads leadership comes – Prabhakar who has taken over our ads product and engineering efforts, someone I worked with for many, many years, and most recently has led our G Suite business, but has done many roles before, is a deep computer scientist. And I expect to, for him to continue our tradition of technical excellence with the – approach our advertising work. Also want to mentioned Philip and his team, his extraordinary team, who definitely lead many of our initiatives here. And Philip and Prabhakar, with them I think it's in great hands. And I expect a lot of continuity there. On your question on search and Discover, it's in addition to making search more visual, one of the things we are very, very focused on is not always do users turn to us and actually ask a question. So we feel our job is to be there when users need us, anticipate what they want and sometimes proactively meet them. That's where services like Discover really play a role. Right? And I think we are thinking hard about how we can surface relevant information for our users, stuff they are really looking for, can act on, in a way in which it's delightful for them and is showing up for them when they need it. So I see that as an important evolution of search as well. And so you're going to see us investing more. Mobile offers us a great opportunity. And if you use it in Pixel 3, that's the latest product in which we bring our vision of how to bring all these products together and we'll give you a good sense of how we plan to do that over time.
Daniel Salmon
Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Anthony DiClemente of Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.
Anthony DiClemente
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is now open
Great. Thank you for taking my questions. First for Sundar, you spent some time on hardware. You spent time discussing your suite of hardware devices, the Google Assistant, the Pixel. How are you measuring the returns on those investments in hardware, both in the products and on the marketing side here in a pretty competitive marketplace? What are the milestones for success that we should be looking for on hardware? And then for Ruth, as we start to look ahead to 2019, as you plan for 2019, how are you thinking about the relationship between revenue growth and dollars of operating income growth for next year, particularly if the macroeconomic environment were to become, let's say, less of a tailwind to the broader ads environment as it was this year and in prior years? Thank you.
Sundar Pichai
Management
On hardware, we always want to be at the forefront of computing. And so, and a lot of times that involves thinking across the whole stack, bringing together the entire experience in an integrated way for our users. And we genuinely see a very differentiated way to do this. We think of our approach of bringing together AI software and hardware is unique and we think we can deliver the best-in-class experience and we are committed to doing it. At the same time, we want to build a great business here as well. So we are investing in the long run because we see it clearly as an important business opportunity for us as well, so both go hand-in-hand. We closely look at metrics, and the metrics we have been very focused on for the last couple of years. This is our third generation of hardware. It's the first time we actually are doing our products end-to-end, and we've expanded to newer categories. We look at user feedback and reception. We measure NPS scores. And our scores are now reflecting best-in-class in the category. And beyond that, we're looking at how the market adoption is and we are thoughtfully building a business but we are committed to building and investing for the long run.
Ruth Porat
Management
And in terms of how we're thinking about planning, we're in the middle of it now. And many of the questions sort of been already asked sort of point to the direction that we feel really good about the underlying strength in the ads business as we've talked about on numerous calls. We continue to invest here because we see ongoing opportunities in particular as we leverage machine learning to provide better experience for users and for advertisers. And some of the comments that Sundar made about the opportunities that open up with visual search again continue to point the direction direct response, continue to point to some of the underlying areas in which we're focused. But as we've talked about on prior calls, that's one element of it, and we continue to invest for opportunities that are sizable over the long term. Sundar has already commented on both hardware and cloud as really important examples, and we think the steps that we're taking, the investments we're making, provide the foundational support for ongoing long-term sustained growth. And so then we marry that with the second part of your question, which is in how do we think about the pace of investment. As we've said repeatedly, we're very focused on investing for the long term. We're trying to make sure that we prioritize crisply across the opportunity set that we have and we make the right types of trade-offs but we do remain focused on long-term investing given the scale of the opportunities that we see.
Anthony DiClemente
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is now open
Got it, thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Mark Mahaney of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Mark Mahaney
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open
Thanks. Two questions please. One, Sundar, could you just update us with your thinking on China and the China market and the extent. I know Google is already in that market, but the extent to which you want to expand, re-expand your presence there with search. And then in terms of Waymo, just a quick question. Commercialization of Waymo, do you know when, do you have a sense of when you'll have pricing established and you'll have a roughly well-defined and acted on go-to-market strategy with Waymo? Is that the end of this year, beginning of next year, whenever? Thank you.
Sundar Pichai
Management
And, Mark, on China, we obviously, we deeply care about serving Chinese users. We've been investing for many years and especially from developing Android. But more recently, we have launched mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go and improved our developer tools there. So we are constantly looking for ways by which we can better serve Chinese users. And that's where we are today.
Ruth Porat
Management
And then in terms of Waymo, in the third quarter, as I think you know, we extended our Early Rider Program to a larger group and we moved into very early days of commercialization. So we do now have people paying for rides and we're also testing pricing models. I think the main point, we've said this repeatedly is that, we are intently focused on safety first and ensuring a great user experience. And so what that means is, we're really expanding the program methodically. We're taking an iterative approach as we continue to broaden the geographic footprint. And then on top of that, as we've talked about on prior calls, we've been developing the B2B opportunity. So in Phoenix, as an example, we've been piloting with several partners who are sponsoring a service on behalf of their employees and customers. And again it's early days. So small revenues, but we're pleased to be testing this out as well, and then on top of that continuing to explore applying our technology for logistics and deliveries and for personal use vehicles and for last mile solutions for cities. So you can see a move in the third quarter. But as we said repeatedly, it's very early days and we are taking a very deliberate iterative approach to broadening it out.
Mark Mahaney
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open
Thank you, Ruth. Thank you, Sundar.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Brian Nowak of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Brian Nowak
Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open
Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. The first one on map monetization and putting some more ads in the map. Can you just talk about sort of early learnings there? I know you talked about local mobile searches growing quite rapidly in the past. But any early learnings from the monetization and the return that advertisers are getting on that front? And the second one on video games and Project Stream. Could you just talk a little about how you think about the gaming opportunity for Alphabet, and what you think are the key factors you need to tackle to really build and scale direct-to-consumer facing cloud gaming product.
Sundar Pichai
Management
Look, on the ad stuff, we've had ad formats in Maps for some time and we are constantly working to make it more useful and relevant. But I wouldn't underestimate the focus we have on local. Just to give you a sense, local mobile searches are growing faster than just mobile searches overall, and have increased by almost 50% in the last year. So for us, that's an important focus area and Maps plays a big role there. So we recently announced Local campaigns, which is a new campaign type specifically designed to drive foot traffic to local businesses, right. And it's going to roll out in the coming months. And so that is a big focus. And as you pointed out, we are definitely launching and experimenting with newer ad formats on Maps itself. We have promoted places which appears on the map itself. We have place page ads which appear on Google listings in Maps and search. But we are definitely in the phase of putting those, testing it out, making sure the user experience works and making sure we can deliver value for advertisers. We are being patient here because the opportunity in local search, it's a big opportunity and we are focused there. On your second question, look, we today serve our users on gaming across Google ads but in many ways, right. Obviously, Google Play does this a lot. It's a big important vertical on YouTube. And so we touch with gaming developers across many areas already. And so we are thoughtfully thinking about what more we can do there. And Project Stream, having spent my life on computing. I was blown away by seeing our ability to stream a game which needs real-time interactions and to be able to do that from the cloud. And it's one of the most important technological advances I've seen in a while. And so we are going to focus on that and make sure we are making progress there and bring newer experiences for gamers.
Brian Nowak
Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open
Great. Thanks.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Douglas Anmuth of JPMorgan. Your line is now open.
Douglas T. Anmuth
Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open
Thanks for taking the questions. One for Sundar, one for Ruth. Sundar, can you help us better understand how the remedy in Europe will work in terms of licenses and TAC going forward? And what impact do see that having on financials? And then Ruth, can you just talk about where you are in the hardware replacement cycle in your datacenters? Pretty major step up this year just given that large ramp. How are you thinking about the trajectory into 2019? Thank you.
Sundar Pichai
Management
Thanks, Doug. On Europe, I mean it's early to say. We'll begin only implementing the remedy in the next few weeks. But in all these cases, we always, we're focused on complying with the commission's directive and we want to make sure that the transition for both our users and our OEM partners is as smooth as possible. In this case you're dealing with life cycles for mobile phones. So changes is going to take some time to reach users. And it's difficult to predict how the licensing model will be adopted. But our products are very popular with users across platforms. And so it's early to say but we're focused on doing the right thing there.
Ruth Porat
Management
And then in terms of technical infrastructure and our CapEx as we talked about last quarter, CapEx reflects our view of the growing opportunity set in our core ads and search businesses as well as the longer-term opportunities in newer businesses in particular to support cloud. And then very importantly, as we've talked about machine learning across Alphabet. And we're particularly excited about the opportunity with machine learning, because it opens up more services and products for users and for advertisers and for enterprise customers. And so given our view about the long-term potential with these opportunities, we're very focused on ensuring that we have the needed compute capacity to support growth. And that's what you're really seeing with the uptick in investment. To give you a bit of a breakdown, the largest component continues to be machines. But relative to last year, it's important to note that datacenter construction is an increasing percentage of our CapEx investment. And so we're now in various stages of developing more than 20 datacenter sites globally. We're also investing in network infrastructure such as undersea cables so we can deliver speed and quality. So again this really goes to our view of the opportunity set. That being said, we do remain very focused on optimizing the use of CapEx and also on compute efficiency. We're very mindful of the fact that our decisions here on CapEx don't just result in CapEx spend but also translate into higher depreciation expenses and that goes both to cost of sales and OpEx. So very careful about how we're using it, but I want to make sure that we've built for the requirements that we have. And as much as you asked about technical infrastructure, just a quick note that our facility spend, namely real estate, was more muted this quarter and it was primarily just the ongoing work on our ground up development. So you're primarily seeing what's going on, on technical infrastructure here.
Douglas T. Anmuth
Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open
Great. Thank you both.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Ross Sandler of Barclays. Your line is now open.
Ross Sandler
Analyst · Barclays. Your line is now open
Great. Two questions. Ruth, so you guys posted pretty solid growth all around. But if we look at some of the international markets, each geography had a tougher comp and decelerated a little bit on a currency-neutral basis. So, I guess, stepping that high level, the growth rates are solid. But can you give us any color on the overall macro picture here? I think we're getting mixed feedback from different companies across different sectors. So any high-level comments would be helpful on just the ad market given that you're close to 20% of global advertising ex-China. And then, Sundar, question on I guess Pixel and just the overall advance that you're seeing in smartphone devices. So as you guys roll out more products like Lens and Gboard and some of these other utilities on top of your 1 billion-plus apps like search and YouTube, is there any way to parse out what the overall engagement looks like in markets like the U.S. and Western Europe when the phones are improving their functionality and can you keep adding these additional utilities? Is query volume going up on a per user basis? Any color there will be helpful.
Ruth Porat
Management
So in terms of your first question, we actually felt pretty good about the strength globally, which as I noted in opening comments, across the board, 20% growth in the U.S. on a $15 billion base. As Sundar noted, what's going on in APAC, 30% year-on-year growth. It's now over a $5 billion revenue business and we've had sustained quarter after quarter growth at this kind of 30%-ish area, feel really good about that. And by country, it really does reflect broad-based strength. As he said, we're very focused on the region. And I think we're delivering terrific products and experiences in rapidly growing markets. You see the same thing in other Americas, neutralizing for currency movements, 28% year-on-year growth. So we're really proud of what the teams are doing around the globe.
Sundar Pichai
Management
And on your second question, one of the things we clearly see when we make a hardware product like Pixel, in which all the tools and the utilities we build are conveniently there integrated and the experience is great. We definitely see users engaging more. And so, we see an opportunity. And that's one of the bigger reasons why we do hardware as well, to show that into an experience, both for our ecosystem as well as for us. It helps us give users a much deeper engaged experience as well. And when you look at all our products, we see that. And so, we do see that as an opportunity.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open.
Michael Brian Nathanson
Analyst · MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open
Thanks. I have two for Sundar, kind of the same theme. One is on the Pixel 3. The marketing message is clear. The product looks great. But I wonder, when you look at to date the success ramping the product, what's been the gating factor? Has it been the carriers? Has it been the price? And we look at the factors for why it hasn't scaled as much as the product should have a scaled, what are the factors? And then on Verily, you called out some deals you've had with big pharmaceutical companies this quarter. But again there I wonder, who's your most natural partnership? Is it hospitals, insurance, governments? So we think about the big opportunity, where is the most natural fit to drive Verily going forward?
Sundar Pichai
Management
On Pixel, look, first of all, part of the big thing is this is our third generation of hardware. Each generation, first of all, we've been scaling up the product in terms of even the number of units we can make and so on. So if you remember the first couple generations were struggling to meet the early demand we saw. This is the first year we have done it end-to-end and we are ramping up from there. And so each year when I look at all the metrics, be it NPS or be it our sales, be it our reviews, etcetera, everything is progressing well. But there are, you're right, the gating factors to ramp this up, first of all is to be able to build the supply we need. And second is go-to-market, getting ourselves in as many locations in retail as possible, in as many countries as possible with as many carrier certifications as possible. So in each of those dimensions, we are making progress as well.
Ruth Porat
Management
In terms of Verily, what we've talked about there is, they have partnered with a whole host of leading pharmaceutical companies focusing on specific diseases, whether it's diabetic retinopathy or across the board for neurological diseases. I announced a couple of new partnerships, the ResMed arrangement as well as Gilead. And that's what they tend to do. They partner with best-in-class to focus on specific areas where working with the pharmaceutical companies they can, and the technology we have, and benefiting from machine learning, we can really move from reactive to proactive care. That's the Verily focus.
Michael Brian Nathanson
Analyst · MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open
Thanks, Ruth. Thanks, Sundar.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And the next question comes from Heather Bellini of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Heather Bellini
Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open
Great. Thank you. I just wanted to focus on cloud a little bit more. Sundar, you gave some good color in your prepared remarks. But I'm wondering if you could share with us an update maybe on the partner momentum and direct sales momentum you're seeing in the market, how you've seen that change? And also if you could highlight, if you've noticed if there's been noticeable changes in win rates over the last year as the product continues to mature. And you, also in the beginning of the year and exiting Q4, you would give us some high-level growth commentary about GCP. and I'm just wondering if you have anything else you could share? Thank you.
Sundar Pichai
Management
Thanks, Heather. Look, overall I mean it's now we've been doing this seriously at the next level for three years. And we are definitely seeing strong indicators that are the investment in product is clearly beginning to work. Our value proposition does come through in many competitive situations. I've seen many important wins in what seemed like very, very competitive situations. I also don't, from the way we see it, it doesn't look like a zero-sum game as you know. We're addressing a large market opportunity here. It seems like very early days. And more importantly, the general sense I get is, we're very aligned with where the market is headed in the long run. And this notion of supporting open architecture so that enterprises don't feel locked in and allowing for a multi-cloud environment to develop. That's the direction we are betting on and our indications are that the market is headed in that direction as well. So that gives us a lot of comfort. That gives us a lot of comfort as well. And on-the-go to market side, we have really ramped up both in terms of our investments, our direct investments, but also our partnership strategy is beginning to work. And when I look at the pipeline ahead that's we are clearly seeing momentum there as well. In this business, obviously the enterprise business plays in a way in which you do have wins, but those accounts turn into larger revenue deals over time. And so it's very clear to us that we are laying the foundation and we are getting the strong early momentum. And that's the big reason why we are investing in a strong way in the area. And over time, we'll obviously share more here as well.
Heather Bellini
Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open
And could I just ask one follow-up if possible? I was just wondering if you look at Microsoft, they have a on-premise and cloud strategy. If you look at Amazon ,what they're doing with AWS and VMware, they're kind of doing a similar strategy. Do you think there's a requirement for you to also have an on-premise strategy to solve this hybrid world as long as it's hybrid for? Thank you.
Sundar Pichai
Management
We are thoughtfully looking at it. I mean we are increasingly working with partners like, for example our partnership from SAP or Pivotal, VMware, these are all on hybrid cloud solutions. And so we are thinking about how to do that better. and our overall approach to cloud hybrid modernization I think is the right long-term direction and so we are doing that. And there are many, many situations we are in where on-prem is a big, big, big requirement for customers, but with our partnership approach, we've been able to address the needs well. So, I don't see that as a gating issue for us.
Heather Bellini
Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open
Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Brent Thill of Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Brent Thill
Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open
Thanks. Ruth, I just wanted to see if you could quantify the FX headwind. I think it was a negative 1% for Q3 and in Q4, do you anticipate it to be similar or a little worse?
Ruth Porat
Management
I will let you forecast the dollar. As you noted, it was 1 point here. We went from a tailwind in the second quarter to a 1 point drag here going forward. But we called out that and we'll have more in the Q, but noted the impact, for example, a pretty big delta between our reported and fixed and other Americas, 19% to 28% growth and that was really what was going on with the Brazilian real and the Argentine peso. We saw some movements in other currencies around the globe, but you can see that, which is why we broke out the geography the way we've done it a number of quarters ago to try and give you, help give a better sense of the types of headwinds and I'll let you forecast the dollar.
Brent Thill
Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open
Okay, we look forward to that. Real quick just on EMEA, you were flat on your constant currency growth, 19%, 19% the last two quarters despite with GDPR. So, I would believe that would suggest that you're probably not seeing as big a headwind perhaps as maybe some expect. Could you just talk to the European business and what you're seeing there?
Sundar Pichai
Management
Look, I mean specifically, I think if your question is around GDPR and so on, first of all, I mean we've always been as a company very, very focused on user privacy and security. And so in some ways we were very early on, engaged on GDPR and we worked very hard to make sure our products are ready in in compliance. We've generally always approached our products with a strong privacy lens for our users. So, and I think that helps us work through these changes, because I don't think they are at odds with what we are trying to accomplish. I think GDPR is a very good and comprehensive set of regulations. And so I think it's been good to see a smooth transition on our products and for our users.
Ruth Porat
Management
We're continuing to invest significantly in Europe, because we see the opportunity across Europe and are investing in the communities in which we're working.
Brent Thill
Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open
Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our final question comes from the line of Justin Post of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open.
Justin Post
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open
Great, thank you. One quick one for Ruth. People are really asking about Amazon. Just wondering if your e-commerce vertical was any difference versus your other verticals in the quarter. Anything to call out there? And then secondly, Sundar, a lot of interesting things going on with YouTube and Waymo and cloud and other areas. As you look out two or three years, do you think any of these businesses could really make a financial positive difference on the bottom line for overall Google? Thank you.
Sundar Pichai
Management
Look, I mean, I think on the first thing on e-commerce, maybe really in people, we do see a lot of activity in the vertical on our products, and we see strong growth there as well. We see is an important use case and that's why we are investing a lot. And if you look at our recent work with Shopping Actions, that's an example of the kind of work we are doing there. And when we do those things, we clearly see users respond. Like for example, on Shopping Actions I think we just recently had partnerships with Best Buy and Nike and Sephora, I mentioned it earlier. So we are continuing to invest there and we are also driving strong partnerships with the retail sector, both in terms of our shopping experiences as well as through cloud. And I think that continues to be a big opportunity. And on your broader question, look, the reason we are investing across Google and Alphabet in a set of areas is because as a company over the past 20 years, we have developed deep capabilities in technology, in computer science and especially with machine learning and AI. And we see an opportunity to apply that across a set of important areas. There are a lot of opportunities ahead of us. We are pretty disciplined about where we focus on and we're focused on real large opportunities. And when you mention areas like YouTube and Waymo and cloud and hardware, they all fit the category. But we take a very long-term view. And we want to investigate the user experience right. And we're pretty confident that when we do that, the value will follow.
Justin Post
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open
Thank you, Sundar.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And that concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Ellen West for closing remarks.
Ellen West
Head of Investor Relations
Thanks everyone for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on our fourth quarter call.
Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.