Google’s digital advertising empire is regaining the momentum it lost during the pandemic’s early stages as its YouTube video service matures into a major marketing magnet and companies anticipate more spending by cooped-up consumers when the economy reopens.
The comeback highlighted the latest quarterly results released Tuesday by Alphabet Inc., Google’s corporate parent.
As usual, Alphabet generated all but a small fraction of its revenue from Google’s internet-leading ad network, while other companies in its portfolio were mostly a financial drain.
Alphabet earned $15.2 billion on revenue of $56.9 billion during the October-December period, a showing that easily outstripped the projections of Wall Street analysts. Investors hailed the performance by driving up Alphabets’ stock price by more than 5% in extended trading after the numbers came out.
Google’s fourth-quarter ad revenue totaled $46.2 billion, a 22% increase from the same time in the previous year. The growth in the past quarter surpassed the 10% year-over-gain in Google’s ad revenue during the July-September period.