Alphabet entrenches online ad dominance with bumper revenues
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has entrenched its position as the top dog in online advertising after smashing analyst expectations with revenues of $75.3bn for the three months to December 31. The pivot to privacy and the resulting rigamarole around its cookie replacement certainly haven’t done it any damage.
Alphabet’s revenues total $75.3bn for the quarter and $257.6bn for the year
Ad revenues alone weighed in at an impressive $61.2bn for the period – a sizeable leap from the equivalent $46.2bn income reported the year before – reflecting the seismic shift toward digital advertising initiated by the pandemic.
Google has been propitiously positioned to hoover up the majority of this windfall, further cementing its outright dominance of the sector. To put this success into perspective, YouTube alone saw ad revenue top $8.6bn for the quarter, comfortably seeing off Netflix’s total revenues of $7.7bn, recording $28.8bn in ad revenue for the year as a whole.
It is search advertising that continues to provide the bread-and-butter basis for Alphabet’s unprecedented success, with absolute revenues totaling $75.3bn for the quarter and $257.6bn for the year.
Google’s chief financial officer Ruth Porat said: “Our fourth-quarter revenues of $75bn, up 32% year-on-year, reflected broad-based strength in advertiser spend and strong consumer online activity, as well as substantial ongoing revenue growth from Google Cloud.”
Financial success is likely to draw closer inspection by regulators, however, who have already been scrutinizing the business practices of big tech amid fears of a market monopoly, but Alphabet’s tendrils have only extended further.
Ever tuned in to the next revenue-making opportunity, Alphabet is turning its attention to YouTube in the connected TV space with a focus on shoppable ads.
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