Shares of Google parent company Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) are popping in the premarket after the company reported quarterly results that beat Wall Street estimates.
Alphabet’s profitable results were buoyed by heavy digital advertising spending during the holiday shopping season. The shares were up more than 7% in pre-market trading.
Fourth-quarter revenue, excluding payments to distribution partners, came in at $46.43 billion U.S., the Mountain View, California-based company said in a written statement. Analysts had expected $44.2 billion U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg Markets.
Online ad sales have rebounded since the early days of the pandemic, when the economy declined and marketers pulled back. Analysts expected Google to benefit from increased online search activity and YouTube viewership while people remained stuck at home.
Last week, Facebook reported surging revenue growth after online shopping boosted the digital ads market. That same phenomenon spurred gains in Alphabet shares, which have jumped about 10% so far this year.
Alphabet now has three reported segments and discloses revenue and the operating income or loss for each:
Google Services: Includes search, advertising, Android, Chrome, hardware, Google Maps, Google Play and YouTube.
Google Cloud: Includes the company’s technical infrastructure and data-analytics platforms, collaboration tools and other services for enterprise customers.
Other Bets: Includes the Waymo driverless car business.
Tech Insider
