Alphabet, the company that manages Google, has released its first quarterly report for 2023, in which the key figure concerns a slight increase in total revenues. Looking at individual segments, the successful sale of the Google Pixel 7 model and the first-ever financially positive operation of Google Cloud stands out as the biggest developments in the last quarter.
The company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, emphasized that the management is satisfied with the result because, as reported by CNBC, Google advertising brought the expected results, while the Cloud business segment achieved the first operating profit since its establishment.
Earnings per share were $1.17, versus $1.07 expected, and total revenue was $69.79 billion versus $68.9 billion.
While YouTube still appears to be taking a hit in the market due to the continued expansion of the Chinese social network TikTok, ad revenue on the video platform reached $6.69 billion, slightly above analysts’ earlier expectations of $6.64 billion.
The company cut about 12,000 job cuts (roughly a sixth of the workforce) in January. However, Alphabet reported more than 190,000 employees at the end of the quarter, up 16 percent from 163,000 at the end of January-March. in 2022.
Purchase of own shares
During the address to investors, Picaj said that Alphabet would increase the development of artificial intelligence with additional “protective measures” due to society’s growing concern.
Shares of Alphabet rose three percent in the first hour after the announcement as the overall results exceeded expectations, only to later return to a slight downtrend that began yesterday.
The company announced the purchase of its shares worth 70 billion dollars.
