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It wasn’t a good year for Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) in 2016. Sure, it generated $17.1 billion in operating income through the first nine months of its current fiscal year on $64.2 billion in revenue, but at the end of the day GOOGL stock only managed a total return for shareholders of 1.9%.
Source: Brionv via Wikimedia (Modified)
That’s on par with its internet content peers, but way off the 12% delivered by the S&P 500. Not good by Google standards.
Holding GOOGL stock back — a bit of a misnomer considering that it has nearly doubled the return of the S&P 500 over the past five years — is a valuation that InvestorPlace contributor Dana Blankenhorn feels is “priced to near-perfection” with a price-earnings ratio of 29 based on a consensus per-share earnings estimate of $26.90 in 2016, $32.25 in 2017 and $36.99 in 2018.
10 of the Worst Values on Wall Street
So, analysts expect Alphabet to grow earnings by 17.3% annually over the next two years — that’s a two-year PEG ratio of 1.7. By comparison, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB ) has a two-year PEG ratio of 1.6 based on annual EPS growth of 29%.
From this perspective, GOOGL stock doesn’t look too bad; you have to conclude that either FB is overvalued at this point or GOOGL isn’t quite as expensive as people think.
Especially when you consider that there’s still gas in Alphabet’s tank.
Google Travel Is Fueling GOOGL
Leading the charge is its travel business which has quietly become a key element in Alphabet’s success. As the travel vertical prospers, so too does Google and its parent.
According to Dennis Schaal of Skift, Google’s travel business will generate an estimated $12.2 billion in advertising revenue in 2016, accounting for 13.7% of Alphabet’s projected 2016 revenue of $89.3 billion. Put another way, Google’s travel business will generate approximately 1,670% [calculation: $12.2/4 multiplied by 3 divided by Other Bets Q1-Q32016 revenue of $547 million] more revenue in 2016 than its Other Bets  segment, which includes much of the innovative work being done by the company, including Nest, Fiber, etc.
On its own, Google Travel would be a pretty large company with operating profits of $3.8 billion. While advertising might be boring, one can’t underestimate the importance of this vertical to the company’s profitable growth.
And you can forget about Google becoming an online travel agency with this much money on the line. It’s not going to cut off its nose to spite the face. It’s just not.
“Google’s existing revenue from travel advertisers is already considerably larger than that of the Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ: PCLN ); is roughly twice the size of Expedia Inc’s (NASDAQ: EXPE ), and Google generates more travel advertising revenue than that of Expedia, Ctrip (NASDAQ: CTRP ) and TripAdvisor Inc (NASDAQ: TRIP ) combined,” wrote Schaal in his November 2016 article on the subject. “Google undoubtedly takes that travel-advertising revenue and achieves a much higher profit margin on it than do the roster of its online travel, airline, hotel, car rental and cruise partners.”