[kyleplum]

> Our third quarter revenues were $69.1 billion, up 6% versus last year or up 11% on a constant currency basis

"Constant Currency Basis" seems to be the latest innovation in the non-GAAP methods of reporting revenue. The creativity of the financial industry never ceases to impress.

Thankfully we do have a set of "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" that helps see through the bull.

[missedthecue]

Latest innovation? The concept of constant currency basis accounting has been in use for decades. I searched for 2 seconds... here is the annual report for IBM in 1997. They specifically state that their numbers are adjusted on a constant currency basis.

https://www.ibm.com/annualreport/assets/past-reports/1997-ib...

If I put effort into it, I'm sure I could link you to corporate financial statements from the early 1970s after Bretton Woods when currencies became free-floating, necessitating this calculation.

How else would you report it? Break out separate income statements for all 100+ currencies Google deals with, so you can see how many Peruvian Sols they earned in Q3 2022 and ignore currency exchange rate fluctuations?

[jsnell]

Also, it's not that it was picked into use for this specific earnings report to make it look better. They've been consistently reporting the impact of foreign exchange rate changes on the earnings for 15 years, whether that makes for a larger or smaller number.

[Narkov]

I don't think it's an unreasonable measure. I want to know about the companies fundamental business metrics...not currency changes.

[perardi]

Well, yeah, you have to have some sort of smoothing function to deal with exchange rates. Especially over the past year—the USD has been on a hell of a run.

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/USD-JPY?sa=X&ved=2ahUKE...

And…they list the USD-denominated revenues. They say the revenue right there in the sentence you quoted, and further along in the PDF, they break it down per region.

Not shenanigans. Commonly accepted. And makes sense, as the US dollar is the de facto world currency, and everything else swings in its wind.

[ISL]

For those who have never heard the term (like me), here's a link: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/constantcurrencies.asp

[namdnay]

If a big part of their revenue is in foreign currencies it does make sense to share the adjusted figure as well

[MichaelZuo]

Along with EBITDA and other funky accounting measures, they likely are warning signs. i.e. presenting fluffed up numbers prominently is indicative of something.

[qeternity]

EBITDA is not funky, it's a core financial metric (which has limitations like every other).

Things get funky when you start seeing "community adjusted EBITDA" and its cousins.

[MichaelZuo]

Why do you believe it's impossible for a 'core accounting metric' to be funky?

Just because something is widely used doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be actually correct or reflect reality.

For example: It never makes sense to exclude depreciation for anything physical without adding back on some cost of wear-and-tear, since everything physical suffers wear and tear. I've never seen this happen in reports with EBITDA figures, nor in this report.

i.e. They're effectively presenting 'profit' figures that exclude some amount of real, tangible, losses. So it's really only a pseudo-profit, which is why there's a separate 'Net Profit' figure in every SEC compliant report.

[qeternity]

It's not meant to singularly reflect the totality of financial health.

It's a proxy for some things, which as I said has limitations like any other proxy.

[MichaelZuo]

You flat out said 'EBITDA is not funky'

Why do you believe it's impossible for it to be funky?

[prottog]

Ha, I had just forgotten about "community adjusted EBITDA"! What a laugh that was.