Google’s parent company Alphabet has decided to sell all its shares in the trading app Robinhood.
This week it became known that the specified technology giant sold 90% of its stake in the mentioned app in August. A later statement from the company, sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission, contains information that Alphabet has liquidated its assets related to Robinhood. Also, the owner of the world’s most popular Internet search system sold his shares in the taxi aggregator Lyft.
Alphabet provided investment funds for the development of Robinhood before this brand became public. At the same time, the media drew attention to the fact that the technology giant allocated funding after the trading platform began to interact with retail traders actively.
For Robinhood, the current macroeconomic situation, the content of which is determined by such negative circumstances as high-interest rates and inflation, has become a kind of challenge. The company faced significant difficulties. This is confirmed by the fact that the brand has reported a reduction in its base of monthly active users. In August of the current year, this figure was 10.6 million. For the same period of 2022, the number of monthly active users of the trading platform was fixed at the level of 13.3 million. This is a sensitive decline that hurts the company’s condition.
Last week, Robinhood published a report on the financial results of its activities for the third quarter of this year. In the period from July to September, the company’s revenue from cryptocurrency trading fell by 55% year-on-year. Experts noted that this is a significant deterioration in the indicator, which is in a certain sense remarkable since it was recorded against the background of the popularity of virtual money and the growing interest in trading the corresponding currency among investors.
At the same time, Robinhood’s total net revenue for the third quarter amounted to $467 million, which is 29% higher than the result for the same period in 2022. The positive dynamic, in this case, is due to the affirmative indicators for some sources of the company’s income. For example, the firm’s net interest income in the third quarter increased by 96% year-on-year, amounting to $251 million. This result was achieved thanks to the expansion of assets generating corresponding income and higher short-term interest rates.
Special attention should be paid to the fact that Robinhood’s increased financial indicators still do not correspond to estimates from Wall Street.
Judging by the latest news, Alphabet is currently focused on increasing its investment activity in the artificial intelligence industry. These efforts of the technology giant are understandable, since in this case it means systems of digital thinking that have the potential to change the habitual landscape of human life. This week it became known that Google, owned by Alphabet, is exploring the prospects of providing investments for several hundred million dollars to the startup Character.AI which creates chatbots.
