Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, has posted its fourth-quarter results for FY20, revealing that the company has quickly bounced back from the business impacts of COVID-19.
In financial results for Q4 2020 released Tuesday, Alphabet revealed a 23 per cent increase in revenues to US$56.9bn compared with US$46.1bn in the corresponding period for FY19.
This was buoyed largely by strong performance from both Google and YouTube’s ad business performance, which lifted 22 per cent in Q4 to US$46.2bn.
Google Cloud, now broken down into its own reporting segment, saw a 47 per cent increase in revenue for Q4 from US$2.6bn to US$3.8bn, when compared to Q4 2019.
“Our strong fourth quarter performance, with revenues of [US]$56.9 billion, was driven by Search and YouTube, as consumer and business activity recovered from earlier in the year,” Ruth Porat, CFO of Google and Alphabet, writes in the company’s earnings report.
“Google Cloud revenues were US$13.1 billion for 2020, with significant ongoing momentum, and we remain focused on delivering value across the growth opportunities we see.”
However, Google Cloud posted an operating income (loss) of more than US$5.6bn for FY20, with a Q4 loss of US$1.24bn, according to Alphabet’s earnings report.
In terms of Alphabet’s operating income, the conglomerate’s total income from operations was up 69 per cent from US$9.26bn to US$15.65bn in the same period.
For the full year of FY20, Alphabet reported a 20.4 per cent increase in net income from $34.2bn to $41.2bn. In terms of revenue, Alphabet is up 12.8 per cent from US$162bn to US$183bn.
The news comes after Google last year posted its first-ever year-on-year revenue drop, caused by large cuts in ad spend from the coronavirus pandemic.
Overall expenses at Alphabet rose by 12 per cent in Q4 to US$41.2bn, with FY20 as a whole seeing an increase in overall expenses of 10.7 per cent.
Sales and marketing expenses, however, decreased during Q4 by nearly 8 per cent from US$5.73bn to US$5.31bn, declining 3 per cent for FY20.
Alphabet’s APAC revenue (GAAP) led the way in terms of regions, growing by 32 per cent in Q4 to US$9.9bn, up from US$7.48bn in Q4 2019.
You can check out Alphabet’s earnings report, in full, here.
Featured image source: iStock/400tmax
