What’s driving those hefty gains? The tech giant’s excellent quarterly numbers, mostly powered by continued strength in AI.
In short, Alphabet is successfully leveraging artificial intelligence to improve the efficacy of its advertising business, the experience of its search engine, and the utility of its data centers. And its mastery therein is fueling ~15% revenue growth and ~30% profit growth.
When it comes to AI, Alphabet is crushing it. And as a result, GOOGL stock is soaring higher.
But we believe the biggest triumph reflected in Alphabet’s earnings report is actually the company’s most underrated AI driver: Waymo, its autonomous vehicle (AV) unit.
Waymo was introduced to the public back in December 2016. And since then, the AV project has made substantial progress to cement itself as the world’s leading self-driving effort, even launching autonomous ride-hailing networks in places like San Francisco and Phoenix.
But when it comes to privately owned self-driving vehicles, public-facing progress has been slow…
Until recently.
Over the past few months, the sands at Waymo have started to shift in a manner that we believe is consistent with exponential growth.
That is, we think the company is gearing up to make 2025 the year that autonomous vehicles finally take over the roads.
And Alphabet’s latest earnings report seems to support that thesis.
Waymo Is Proving to Be Alphabet’s Golden Goose
This progress began in June, when Waymo removed the waitlist for its autonomous ride-hailing service in San Francisco, opening the service to all users. That signified a huge vote of confidence from management that its AVs are safe enough for everyone to ride.
Since then, Waymo has greatly increased its fulfillment. The firm was previously completing about 50,000 autonomous rides per week. By August, that number had grown to 100,000. And now, as management confirmed in last night’s quarterly call, Waymo is completing about 150,000 rides per week.
In other words, Waymo is currently growing its ride volume by about 50,000 per week every two months. At this pace, the company should be delivering over 200,000 rides per week by the end of the year.
Not to mention, early next year, Waymo plans to expand its services to Atlanta and Austin, growing its footprint from three to five cities.
And it won’t stop there.
What makes us so sure?
Well, the company just raised $5.6 billion in a massive fundraising round. Plus, it recently announced that it will start testing its AVs on highways – an industry first. And it is also developing a new version of its AV platform that includes less cameras and less sensors in a roomier car. Presumably, this new AV – dubbed “generation 6” – will be much less expensive, much less clunky, and much more comfortable.
With all those new funds… all these new driving capabilities… and presumably cheaper cars… Waymo looks well-positioned to expand to multiple new metros over the next year.
We think that’s exactly what will happen.
The Final Word
With this flood of recent developments, we believe Waymo will launch new autonomous ride-sharing services in multiple new cities next year – maybe even in a city near you.
And we believe that will mark a watershed moment for the AV industry – the moment that AVs really hit the mainstream.
It should also be the moment that AV stocks really start to soar on Wall Street.
Of course, GOOGL stock should benefit from the coming AV Boom. After all, Alphabet does own Waymo.
— Luke Lango
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Source: Investor Place