
<p id="h-topline"><strong>TOPLINE</strong> Google parent Alphabet posted first quarter earnings Tuesday of $26.29 per share (versus Wall Street expectations of $15.82 per share) on revenues of $55.31 billion (versus expectations of $51.7 billion), boosted by surge in ad revenues.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<ul><li>Alphabet’s reported fiscal first quarter net income of $17.93 billion, or $26.29 a share, almost tripled the net income of $6.84 billion, or $9.87 a share, in the year-ago period.</li></ul>



<ul><li>The first quarter revenues of $55.2 billion represented a 34% jump from the first quarter of 2020.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Google’s total advertising revenues soared by 32% year-over-year to $44.6 billion.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Revenues at Google’s Cloud unit amounted to $4.05 billion (a 46% surge over last year), but slightly below analyst estimates of $4.07 billion, according to financial date firm FactSet.</li></ul>



<ul><li>But ads generated by the YouTube unit totaled $6.01 billion, above expectations of $5.70 billion (according to FactSet unit StreetAccount) and a 49% surge over the prior year, </li></ul>



<ul><li>Traffic acquisition costs (which are payments made to affiliates and online companies for directing traffic to their websites) came in at $9.71 billion versus expectations of $9.25 billion, according to FactSet estimates.</li></ul>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h4>



<p>Total revenues in the first quarter “reflect elevated consumer activity online and broad-based growth in advertiser revenue. We’re very pleased with the ongoing momentum in Google Cloud, with revenues of $4 billion in the quarter reflecting strength and opportunity in both [Google Cloud Platform] and [Google Workspace computing software],” said Ruth Porat CFO of Google and Alphabet.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



<p>Alphabet shares climbed about 4% in post-close trading. Google’s Cloud platform, which competes with rivals Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services), posted a $974 million operating loss for the quarter, but that compared to a $1.7 billion loss in the prior year. &#8220;In the FAANG [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet] group Amazon is the only competitor against Alphabet on more than one front and whilst Amazon has a large cloud service in AWS, Google’s ad business dwarfs its rival,&#8221;<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/alphabet-google-youtube-reports-q1-earnings-results-150238095.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;Tom Johnson</a>, chief transformation officer at marketing agency WPP Mindshare, told Yahoo Finance. &#8220;As brands accelerate out of the pandemic, Alphabet’s combined offering… is likely to become even more attractive as more businesses move to direct-to-consumer or hybrid business models leveraging Alphabet’s advertising and cloud services.&#8221;</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h4>



<p>32%. That’s how much Alphabet shares have surged year-to-date, well above the S&amp;P 500&#8217;s return of 11.5%.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h3>



<p>While Alphabet jumped by 30.9% in pandemic-afflicted 2020, it underperformed some of its FAANG peers: Apple soared 85%, and Amazon surged about 76%.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h3>



<p>In March,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/google-to-spend-7-billion-in-data-centers-and-office-space-in-2021.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google said</a>&nbsp;it would spend $7 billion to expand offices and data centers across 19 states, creating at least 10,000 full-time jobs.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h4>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/01/13/google-parent-alphabet-set-to-hit-1-trillion-in-market-value/">Google Parent Alphabet Is No Longer A $1 Trillion Company After Latest Earnings Miss</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/02/04/google-parent-alphabet-is-no-longer-a-1-trillion-company-after-latest-earnings-miss/">Google Parent Alphabet Passes $1 Trillion In Market Value</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/01/13/google-parent-alphabet-set-to-hit-1-trillion-in-market-value/">Google Cofounders Are $14 Billion Richer After Stellar Earnings Report </a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Palash Ghosh, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tag: Quaterly Results

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Google’s Quarterly Results Smash Expectations