Published: [November 1, 2026]
StartupFeed Quick Take
- Alphabet shed about $500 Bn in market value on October 29, its worst single day since Google listed in 2004
- Capital spending hit $51.4 Bn in one quarter, 3.4 times the $15 Bn Google has promised Visakhapatnam over five years
- Alphabet held its 2026 spending plan at $195 Bn to $205 Bn and said 2027 will go higher
Alphabet lost about $500 Bn in market value on October 29, its worst single day since Google listed in 2004.
The Alphabet market cap closed near $3.47 Tn, with shares down 12.6% at $283.82 on the Nasdaq. CNBC put the old record at 11.63%, set in March 2020.
Only one American company has ever lost more in a day: Nvidia shed $589 Bn in late January 2025. The sum wiped off on Thursday is 33 times what Google has promised Visakhapatnam.
The trigger was cash, not search. Free cash flow was negative $9.07 Bn in the September quarter, against the $2.7 Bn gap analysts had expected.
Capital spending more than doubled. Alphabet spent $51.4 Bn on data centres, servers and networks in three months, against $24 Bn a year earlier.
Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google and Alphabet, pointed to search demand in the results statement.
“Our AI investments are driving overall Search query growth, including commercial queries.”
Sundar Pichai, chief executive, Google and Alphabet. From the results statement, October 28, 2026.
Why the Alphabet market cap fell 12.6% in one day
Revenue was not the problem. Alphabet revenues rose 25% to $127.6 Bn, a thirteenth straight quarter of growth above 10%.
Google Cloud revenue more than doubled, up 103% to $30.7 Bn, and its operating income tripled to $11.1 Bn. Google Search and other brought in $63.3 Bn, up 12%.
Two numbers pulled the other way. The first was spending, which reached $51.4 Bn, up from $44.9 Bn in the June quarter.
About 65% of that technical spend went on servers and networking gear. Alphabet held its 2026 plan at $195 Bn to $205 Bn and said 2027 would rise sharply.
The second was profit per share, which came in at $2.12 against $9.11 in the June quarter. That earlier quarter carried a $98 Bn paper gain on investments.
Alphabet also took an $8.2 Bn hit from an unrealised loss on its SpaceX holding. Operating income still rose 30% to $40.6 Bn, at an operating margin of 31.8%.
Operating cash flow was $42.3 Bn. Cash and marketable securities stood at $265.1 Bn, against long-term debt of $125.1 Bn.
| Figure | Q3 2025 | Q2 2026 | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | $102.3 Bn | $119.8 Bn | $127.6 Bn |
| Google Cloud revenue | $15.2 Bn | $24.8 Bn | $30.7 Bn |
| Capital spending | $24.0 Bn | $44.9 Bn | $51.4 Bn |
| Earnings per share | Not stated | $9.11 | $2.12 |
Google spends more in a quarter than its whole India pledge
Google promised $15 Bn for an AI hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, over five years to 2030. The Visakhapatnam announcement came on October 14, 2025, and is Google’s largest commitment outside the United States.
Set that against one quarter of Alphabet spending. The $51.4 Bn spent between July and September is 3.4 times the whole India pledge.
Spread over five years, the Vizag money works out to about $3 Bn a year. Against a 2026 plan of $200 Bn at the midpoint, that is 1.5% of a single year.
The hub is a 1 GW campus across three sites. They cover 120 acres at Adivivaram, 200 acres at Tarluvada and 160 acres in the Rambilli cluster.
Bharti Airtel and AdaniConneX are the Indian partners. Google runs the project through an Indian unit, Raiden Infotech India Private Limited.
What it means for Visakhapatnam, Airtel and AdaniConneX
Alphabet did not cut its spending plan, and said 2027 spending would rise sharply. For the Visakhapatnam build, that number matters more than the share price.
Work was due to start in early 2026, with the first phase finished within two and a half years. Operations were targeted for July 2028.
Bharti Airtel is building the data centre and a cable landing station. AdaniConneX, part of the Adani group, is building the site works.
Local opposition is the nearer risk. Through October 2026, activists in Visakhapatnam asked for the project approvals to be cancelled over water and power use.
India announced a national data centre policy on October 14, 2026. Andhra Pradesh’s investment board, chaired by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, had cleared the project a year earlier.
Hyperscalers, the big global cloud firms, take about 30% of India’s data centre demand, a share expected to reach 35%. Pre-leased capacity in India hit 1.2 GW by mid-2026, from about 550 MW a year earlier.
What this means for you: If you supply the Visakhapatnam build through Airtel or AdaniConneX, or sell to Google Cloud in India, the funding behind your contract held. Watch Alphabet’s fourth-quarter results in early February 2027 for the 2027 spending number, the first real test of the India build.
StartupFeed Insight
The market punished Alphabet for cash, not for search. Search query growth was the fastest in five years and search revenue still rose 12% to $63.3 Bn. What broke was free cash flow, which turned negative at $9.07 Bn while spending hit $51.4 Bn. For India that gap is the point. The $15 Bn Vizag hub costs Alphabet about 1.5% of one year’s spending. A company under cash pressure trims the lines that move its numbers, and India is not one of them. The build should clear the next two quarters. The real test is the 2027 spending figure, due in early February 2027.
By Saraswati Chaubey, Writer
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment advice. StartupFeed and its authors are not SEBI-registered investment advisors. Please speak to a SEBI-registered advisor before investing.
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