Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Microsoft both posted strong revenue growth in the third quarter, while Twitter swung to a loss, as the three tech companies released results late on Tuesday.
Alphabet
Alphabet smashed Wall Street’s profit expectations in the third quarter, thanks to stronger-than-expected ad sales, though the Google parent fell short of expectations on revenue from its cloud computing division.
Revenue came in at $65.1bn, up 41 per cent year-on-year, and above analysts’ consensus estimates of $63.3bn.
Net income for the July-September period was up almost 70 per cent year-on-year at $18.9bn, beating estimates of $15.8bn. Earnings per share were $27.99.
Alphabet earnings at a glance
Actual versus estimate
Revenue: $65.11bn vs $63.29bn
Net income: $18.94bn vs $15.77bn
Earnings per share: $27.99 vs $23.32
Source: S&P Capital IQ
Google’s advertising revenue were an apparent beneficiary of rebounding search traffic, which analysts have attributed in part to increased travel interest post-pandemic.
The company’s robust advertising business — which is somewhat shielded from Apple’s recent moves to limit data gathering, due to its own vast troves of personal data — posted revenue of $53.1bn. Within that, advertising revenue from YouTube came in at $7.2bn, up more than 40 per cent on the same period a year ago.