Alphabet/Google Revenues Up 1 Percent in Q4

Google’s parent company Alphabet reported that it earned a net income of $13.6 billion on revenues of $76 billion for the quarter ending December 31. Net income was down 34 percent, but revenues were up by 1 percent. This was the fourth consecutive quarter in which the firm’s net income was down year-over-year (YOY).

Alphabet also announced the results for its full fiscal year, with a net income of $60 billion on revenues of $283 billion. So its annual net income was down 21 percent, while revenues rose 10 percent, respectively, YOY.

“Our long-term investments in deep computer science make us extremely well-positioned as AI reaches an inflection point, and I’m excited by the AI-driven leaps we’re about to unveil in Search and beyond,” Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. “There’s also great momentum in Cloud, YouTube subscriptions, and our Pixel devices. We’re on an important journey to re-engineer our cost structure in a durable way and to build financially sustainable, vibrant, growing businesses across Alphabet.”

As part of its results, Alphabet noted that it will take a severance and related charge of $1.9 billion to $2.3 billion as part of a workforce reduction of 12,000 employees. That charge will be recognized in the current quarter, so it is not reflected in today’s results. Alphabet now has 190,234 employees.

Google accounted for $75.1 billion of Alphabet’s $76 billion in revenues, with advertising across Google Search and YouTube accounting for $59 billion in revenues, or 77.6 percent of all of Google’s revenues. (Revenues tied to Google Search fell 1 percent in the quarter while those from YouTube fell 7.8 percent.) Google Cloud contributed another $7.3 billion—up an impressive 32 percent YOY, by the way—while “Google other”—Pixel and other hardware, Play Store, and non-advertising YouTube revenues—was $8.8 billion, up 7.8 percent.