Google Cloud success helps push Alphabet to record results

Google parent company Alphabet has revealed a healthy 14% year-on-year increase in revenue in its previous quarter driven by search and cloud successes.

According to the figures, the Google Cloud business played an instrumental role in this rise, achieving $10 billion in quarterly revenues and, for the first time ever, topping $1 billion in operating profit.

Moreover, total quarterly revenue stood at $84.7 billion, compared with $74.6 billion in the same period last year and $80.5 billion in the first quarter of 2024.

Google Cloud profit

The company’s overall earnings were largely in line with analyst expectations – revenue slightly exceeded the $84.2 billion predication. YouTube advertising revenue fell short of forecasts, reporting $8.66 billion compared with the anticipated $8.93 billion, however it still saw a one-billion-dollar increase in the space of a year.

Speaking about the company’s performance, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai commented: “Our strong performance this quarter highlights ongoing strength in Search and momentum in Cloud. We are innovating at every layer of the AI stack. Our longstanding infrastructure leadership and in-house research teams position us well as technology evolves and as we pursue the many opportunities ahead.”

Google Cloud, which is largely made up of consumption-based fees and subscriptions received for Google Cloud Platform services and Google Workspace, accounted for 12.2% of the company’s revenue. For comparison, AWS accounted for 17.4% of Amazon’s total revenue last quarter, but the metrics indicate that Amazon’s cloud market dominance could be three times that of Google’s.

Despite strong performance, Alphabet shares dipped approximately 2% after the announcement as investors wait to see how the rest of Big Tech performed.

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