COVID-19 pandemic-driven lifestyle changes that have put the Internet at the center of seemingly everything proved a financial boon for Amazon.com Inc and Google in the final three months of last year.
Google parent Alphabet Inc and the Seattle-based e-commerce colossus on Tuesday reported large earnings on thriving Internet advertising and the booming market for online shopping.
“We are proud that people continue to choose Google’s products to stay informed, connected and comforted during uncertain times,” chief executive Sundar Pichai said on an earnings call with analysts.
Photo: AFP
Alphabet said its quarterly profit rocketed about 50 percent to US$15.2 billion at the end of last year as its digital ad business thrived.
Alphabet revenue in the final three months of last year hit nearly US$57 billion, compared with US$46 billion in the same period in 2019, the Internet titan said.
The strong quarter “was driven by Search and YouTube, as consumer and business activity recovered from earlier in the year,” Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat said in the earnings release.
Businesses that cut back on digital advertising early last year due to the pandemic returned in force in the final quarter, following customers that flocked to the Internet rather than risk exposure to COVID-19 in stores, Alphabet chief business officer Philipp Schindler said.
Google took in slightly more than US$46 billion in revenue from digital ads, with US$6.9 billion of that money made from a growing advertising business at global video-sharing platform YouTube, according to the earnings report.
The cloud computing unit at Google brought in US$3.8 billion in the quarter, compared with revenue of US$2.6 billion in the same period a year earlier.
The pandemic is believed to have sped up a lasting shift by businesses, shops and people in general to relying on services in the Internet cloud.
“We see significant opportunities to forge meaningful partnerships as businesses increasingly look to a digital future,” Pichai said.
Amazon saw its revenue in the final quarter of last year climb to a record-setting US$125.6 billion, up 44 percent from US$87.4 billion in the same period in 2019, according to its earnings report.
Profit in the quarter more than doubled to US$7.2 billion in a similar comparison.
The blockbuster earnings report came with an announcement that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would step down as chief executive later this year, turning control of the company over to Andy Jassy, head of the lucrative Amazon Web Services cloud computing division.
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