Alphabet Q1 2021 Revenues $55.3 billion, Up 34pct Y-o-Y

[engine]

Alphabet has reported revenues of $55.3 billion, up 34% Year-on-Year, on an operating income $16.4 billion, up 30% year-on-year.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said: “Over the last year, people have turned to Google Search and many online services to stay informed, connected and entertained. We’ve continued our focus on delivering trusted services to help people around the world. Our Cloud services are helping businesses, big and small, accelerate their digital transformations."Ruth Porat, CFO of Google and Alphabet, said: “Total revenues of $55.3 billion in the first quarter reflect elevated consumer activity online and broad based growth in advertiser revenue. We’re very pleased with the ongoing momentum in Google Cloud, with revenues of $4.0 billion in the quarter reflecting strength and opportunity in both GCP and Workspace."

[abc.xyz...]

Earlier stories
Alphabet Q4 2020 Revenues $56.9 billion, Up 23pct Y-o-Y [webmasterworld.com]

[lammert]

Google Cloud has an operating income loss of $974 million. Better than a year before, but it still needs a lot of money. Jeff Bezos must be smiling ;)

Advertising dropped from 82.0% of total revenue to 80.7% in a year. Their other services slowly catch up, but technically Google is still just an advertising company with a handful of other services.

Interesting is the small note below the figures which mentions that since 2021 their servers and network equipment has an expected useful life of 4 and 5 years, compared to 3 in the years before, causing a net income increase of $560 million.

[engine]

Google is still just an advertising company with a handful of other services.

Alphabet has a long way to go for the other "bets" to come good. When that happens i'm sure its shareholders will sound a sigh of relief. At the moment, Google's market dominance is, apparently, unconquerable. Their biggest challenger to that, at the moment, is going to come from regulators.

Interesting is the small note below the figures which mentions that since 2021 their servers and network equipment has an expected useful life of 4 and 5 years, compared to 3 in the years before, causing a net income increase of $560 million.

That's one way to make the figures look better, eh!

[superclown2]

This has been during a time when much of the world has been in lockdown and internet usage has soared. Next year may well be a very different environment.

In the meanwhile their product (search) is poor, going on awful, and getting worse. Most people who use it do so because Google is the default 'search engine' (read advertising agency) on most platforms but the legislators may bring that to an end. Many of the people who use Google don't even know that better alternatives (no I don't mean Bing!) exist, but they may well find out one day. In the meanwhile, unless they start paying a dividend the only reason to buy their shares will be in the expectation of capital growth. As Mr Charles Punzi showed, that simply doesn't happen for ever.

The public are fickle. Leaving their regulatory problems to one side, all it will take is a switch away from Google to better alternatives and the non-advertising ventures they have tried, and failed with, could well bring them huge problems.

[JS_Harris]

Over 250,000 small businesses shuttered their doors permanently in Canada alone because of pandemic lockdowns. It wasn't them advertising and sites covering more niche subjects felt the resulting ad revenue decline..

Google is still just an advertising company with a handful of other services.

No, Google is a data gathering company 100%, How they package that data differs from section to section but data gathering is key in all they do..

[superclown2]

No, Google is a data gathering company 100%, How they package that data differs from section to section but data gathering is key in all they do..

Absolutely right. But this is the bit I can't get my head round. Before Google came along British Telecom proposed to gather data in a much lighter way than Google with the help of another company - I think it was called Phorm. It was declared illegal in the UK and Europe under privacy legislation. Google came along and drove a coach and horses through both privacy and copyright laws, but got away with it. Why?

The majority of big sites on the web now contain Google tracking code which records visits of every person who visits those sites. Yes there are privacy policies on these sites which give Google the right to do this - at least in the eyes of some lawyers - but how many people understand these policies, let alone read them?

As a result of lax enforcement in privacy rules we now have a tsunami of fraud and identity theft here in the UK. Legislation is way overdue to reign in these personal data gatherers. They are a danger to the financial health and personal security of billions of people. Let's see what their profits are like if they are made to respect rights to privacy.

[lammert]

The majority of big sites on the web now contain Google tracking code which records visits of every person who visits those sites.(...)As a result of lax enforcement in privacy rules we now have a tsunami of fraud and identity theft here in the UK.

You are implying that Google is responsible for a tsunami of fraud and identity theft because Google Analytics and AdSense scripts are present on many sites? That sounds far-fetched to me.

Google uses the laws, but use is not the same as abuse. You are mixing up two different things here, which only have in common that the same set of laws should be used to address it.

[superclown2]

You are implying that Google is responsible for a tsunami of fraud and identity theft

There is a sunami of fraud and identity theft as a result of companies that gather personal information being hacked. Since certain details were leaked over the web recently this has intensified dramatically over here. The consequences if Google's data is hacked - assuming of course it hasn't been already - are unthinkable.

Google and certain other companies have got the populations used to surrendering the sort of information that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. And we all know that a completely secure computer system is a pipe dream.

[scottb]

I used to be able to buy Google ads in my category for 5 cents a click. Now I'm lucky if I get 30 or 40 cents a click, even with no competition.

Google is simply increasing its click prices. At some point, the market will say it isn't willing to pay any more.

[anotoki]

If Google's data is hacked, it will definitely not be related to things like fraud and identity theft. Many people don’t realize what it means.

[mosxu]

Wait is that from Adwords or Bitcoin?