Alphabet earned more in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2023. Earnings per share rose to $1.64 per share in the current reporting period from $1.050 in the same quarter last year. Analysts had previously expected EPS of $1,591, meaning the Google parent was above estimates on the earnings side.
Sales, meanwhile, were $86.31 billion after $76.05 billion in revenue a year ago. Here, analysts’ estimates in advance were $78.52 billion, which is why Alphabet performed better than hoped.
Google’s advertising business continues to grow strongly – but not quite as quickly as Wall Street expected. In the last quarter, advertising revenue rose by eleven percent year-on-year to $65.5 billion, parent company Alphabet announced on Tuesday. Analysts on average had expected more than $65.8 billion.
Advertising around the Google search engine is still by far the group’s most important source of money. Sales here rose from $42.6 to $48 billion in the last quarter. The video subsidiary increased advertising revenue from almost $8 to $9.2 billion.
The development of Google’s advertising business is being watched very closely. A central question is whether attempts by competitors to use artificial intelligence to display direct answers instead of links will leave a trace on Google.
The cloud business grew from $7.3 billion to $9.2 billion. The division, which had posted an operating loss of $186 million in the same quarter last year, was now in the black of $864 million.
In the so-called “other bets” – future projects such as self-driving cars or delivery drones – sales of all companies rose from 226 to 657 million dollars. The division’s operating loss has been significantly reduced: from $1.24 billion a year ago to $863 million now.
Alphabet shares were 7.35 percent lower at $141.80 in US trading on the NASDAQ.
Redaktion finanzen.ch / awp international