Google earnings: parent company Alphabet's financial history and revenue
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- Alphabet's earnings blew past expectations in Q1 of 2024 and sent stocks soaring.
- Google Search, YouTube, Google Cloud, and AI technology like Gemini have performed strongly.
- The Q1 earnings came after a tumultuous 2023 that saw large-scale layoffs.
Alphabet, Google's parent company, releases its earnings data every quarter.
Sundar Pichai, who is the CEO of Google and Alphabet, joins the earnings calls to deliver updates and answer questions.
Here's a breakdown of Alphabet's most recent earnings and financial history.
Alphabet Q1 earnings 2024
Alphabet's earnings report in April of 2024 far outstripped analysts' projections, sending stocks skyrocketing.
The company reported a 15% revenue bump year over year, revenues of $80.5 billion, and also issued its first-ever $0.20 per share dividend.
On the earnings call, Pichai touted "strong" performances from Google Search, YouTube, and Google Cloud. He also spoke glowingly of the company's inroads in artificial intelligence, and declared Alphabet to be in its "Gemini era," a reference to Google's Gemini AI chatbot.
Google has been gradually incorporating AI into its core products, such as YouTube and Workspace, the suite of productivity programs like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive.
"Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure, and our global product footprint, position us well for the next wave of AI innovation," Pichai said.
Alphabet Q4 earnings 2023
Alphabet beat expectations in its fourth quarter of 2023, though Google's advertising sales fell slightly below analyst projections, causing shares to dip.
Alphabet's revenue swelled to $86.3 billion, up 13%, and the company reported a net income of $20.28 billion with $1.64 per diluted share.
In the earnings call, Pichai noted that Google had just launched its new AI model Gemini, and remarked that "the best is yet to come."
Alphabet Q3 earnings 2023
Alphabet's third-quarter earnings surpassed analysts' estimates, beating revenue and profit projections. But Google's stock fell 10% after its Cloud business fell short of Wall Street's expectations.
Google Cloud's revenue was up 22% at $8.4 billion, but down from 28% growth in the previous quarter.
On the earnings call, Pichai noted that the company was expanding and deploying new AI services, and said the company was "excited and confident" for its future prospects.
Alphabet earnings history
Alphabet — made up of Google and a collection of other companies known as Other Bets — had a tumultuous 2023, unveiling its most ambitious artificial intelligence technology and boasting an annual revenue of $307.39 billion, but also axing approximately 6% of the company.
Like many tech companies in the post-pandemic era, Alphabet has sought to cut costs and implement layoffs. Alphabet laid off some 12,000 employees in 2023, and by the end of the fourth quarter, the company reported having about 182,500 employees in total.
Executives have also warned that layoffs aren't over — Pichai has anticipated more job cuts throughout 2024. Pichai explained that Google's layoffs have been intentionally slow because the company is "taking the time to do it correctly and well."
Still, Alphabet's market cap hit $2 trillion in spring 2024, a new milestone that made Google the world's fourth-most valuable public company.
The majority of Alphabet's revenue has come from Google, ever since the parent company was first formed in 2015. Other Bets — which includes businesses like Waymo, Verily, equity investment fund Capital G, and research and development unit Google X — generates most of its revenue from healthcare-related services but also reports large operating losses.
In Q1 of 2024, Other Bets posted revenues of $495 million but reported an operating loss of $1 billion.