Alphabet Q4 Results Indicate a Digital Future

Alphabet, the parent company of Google announced record earnings of $56.9 billion in the Q4 2020. This time period includes October to December, including the holiday season.

The shares of Alphabet soared to 8% in external trading after the company revealed this news. This record earning is 23% up from $46.075 billion in Q4 2019, showing strong returns and surpassing analysts’ expectations.

Here is a quick roundup of how the company performed:

• Earnings: $22.30 per share, adjusted, against $15.90 per share as per analysts.
• Revenue: $56.90 billion, vs. $53.13 billion that analysts expected.
• Google Cloud: $3.83 billion, vs. $3.81 billion as per analysts.
• YouTube ads: $6.89 billion, vs. $6.11 billion as per analysts
• Traffic acquisition costs (TAC): $10.47 billion, vs. $9.32 billion as per analysts.  

Data Source

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and alphabet stated that their results reflected the strong transition to online and cloud services. People/businesses had immensely benefited from their products during the pandemic. He further added that they could foresee a future of meaningful partnership with businesses transiting towards the digital future.

The advertising revenue for Q4 stood at $46.22 billion, up 22% from the same quarter in 2019. That’s a big surge from the second-quarter results when advertisers pulled back on spending due to the Covid pandemic. This was Google’s first-ever year-on-year revenue decline along with an 8% annualized decline in ad revenue. YouTube ads reported revenue of $6.89 billion, while Cloud reported $3.83 billion in Q4 2020.

Alphabet will conduct its call with investors and members of the press to further reveal the numbers of the 2020 Q4 earnings.