Google posts strong Q4 2023 results despite January cuts
Google’s parent company Alphabet has posted a A$472.729 billion (US$307.39 billion) revenue for the 2023 full year, up 9% year on year (YoY).
Profit also saw a boost on the year prior, with Alphabet reporting a net income of A$113.43 billion (US$73.80 billion) in the 12 months to December 31, compared to A$92.18 billion (US$59.97 billion) over the same period in 2022.
Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, said the business was “pleased with the ongoing strength in Search and the growing contribution from YouTube and Cloud. Each of these is already benefiting from our AI investments and innovation. As we enter the Gemini era, the best is yet to come”.
Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer, added: “We ended 2023 with very strong fourth quarter
financial results, with Q4 consolidated revenues of $86 billion, up 13% year over year. We remain committed to our work to durably re-engineer our cost base as we invest to support our growth opportunities.”
In APAC, Q4 saw a reported increase in revenue of 17% YoY to A$21.47 billion (US$13.97 billion). Overall, 2023 was reported at a 10% increase YoY making for a regional revenue of A$79.14 billion (US$51.51 billion).
Looking to advertising revenue, and Google Search, YouTube ads and Google Network all reported increased YoY revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The employee head count at the end of December was 182,502, down from 190,234 compared to the same period in 2022.
The results come only weeks after the company confirmed mass redundancies across Google’s advertising sales team, following news earlier in the month of cuts to thousands of roles in hardware, voice-assistance and engineering.
January also marked the start of Google’s long awaited deprecation of the third-party cookie, which will see cookies gradually disable across all Chrome users over the course of the year.
Alphabet’s share price closed at A$220.56 (US$143.54) on 2 February. Its market capitalisation currently sits at A$2.73 trillion (US$1.78 trillion).
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