Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein lowered the firm’s price target on Alphabet (GOOG) to $130 from $135 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares. The firm notes that the DOJ has filed an antitrust suit, requesting a divestiture of Ad Manager Suite, essentially reversing the 2007 DoubleClick acquisition. In a blog post, Google cited growing competition including Xandr (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), TikTok, AppLovin (APP), PubMatic (PUBM), Magnite (MGNI), and Trade Desk (TTD), among others, and its defense against TX AG. Microsoft’s lawsuit in 1998 took six years to settle, in the interim, Oppenheimer expects about $6B in annual cash flow from its Adtech, deprecate/removal of cookies from Chrome–which will weaken 3P competitors without Search data–and see open-web transform with AI and other emerging technologies. While 3P Adtech is the easiest area for the government to target, the firm thinks the Apple Search relationship and smartphone duopoly would have a wider ranging impact on Google long-term.
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