Google Exceeds Expectations in the Second Quarter
Revenue rises by 7 per cent, profit by as much as 15 per cent. In after-hours trading, Alphabet shares surpassed their current 52-week high.
Google parent Alphabet’s second-quarter revenue rose 7 per cent to $74.6 billion. Net income rose 15 per cent to $18.4 billion, or $1.44 per share. As a result, the company beat analysts’ expectations, who had predicted $72.82 billion in revenue and share earnings of $1.34.
“Our financial results reflect continued resilience in search, with accelerating revenue growth in search and YouTube, and momentum in cloud,” Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat commented on the metrics. “We continue to invest for growth while prioritising our efforts to permanently restructure our cost base across the business and build capacity to create sustainable long-term value.”
Cloud division grows 28 per cent
Google’s advertising revenue increased by 5.5 per cent to 66.3 billion dollars. The cloud division generated another 8 billion dollars, 28 per cent more than a year ago. Google Services contributed 23.5 billion dollars to the operating profit – the cloud business 395 million dollars. In the same period last year, however, the balance sheet for Google Cloud still showed an operating loss of 590 million dollars. The Other Bets division took in 285 million dollars, generating an operating loss of 813 million dollars.
Investors reacted positively to the quarterly figures. Yesterday, the Alphabet share had already closed the trading day with a plus of 0.56 per cent. In after-hours trading, the stock added another 6.09 per cent, pushing it up to 129.65 dollars. The current 52-week high is 129.04 dollars.
