Alphabet’s Earnings Disappoint. Blame It on the iPhone.<br />Its profits were weighed down by an increase in traffic acquisition costs — the fees Google pays companies like Apple to ensure<br />that its search engine is the default option when people open a browser on the iPhone.<br />Alphabet said Google’s traffic acquisition costs in the quarter increased 33 percent from a year earlier, to $6.45 billion.<br />In the fourth quarter, users clicked on 48 percent more ads on Google sites — including search and YouTube — than a year earlier<br />SAN FRANCISCO — Quarter after quarter, investors have become accustomed to Alphabet’s revenue and profit growing at a pace<br />that seems to defy gravity for a company well past its start-up years.<br />Last year, Bernstein Research estimated that Google would pay about $3 billion to<br />Apple in 2017 to remain the default search option on Apple’s mobile devices.
