Alphabet ad sales steady in April
Tech giant Alphabet said on Tuesday evening that Google advertising sales had steadied throughout April as a result of searches for Covid-19 information and online shopping.
ALPHABET-A
$169.38
13:05 08/05/24
Nasdaq 100
18,085.01
12:15 08/05/24
Alphabet posted a mid-teens decline in search ads, its most lucrative business, much better than the drop of 20% expected over the coming few quarters as hotels, airlines, film studios and other big spenders slashed advertising budgets due to the pandemic.
The Californian firm posted overall revenues of $41.2bn for the quarter, up 13% year-on-year and ahead of analysts' estimates of $40.29bn. Overall profits came to $6.8bn or $9.87 per share.
YouTube revenues grew 33.5%, while Alphabet's cloud business pulled in $2.8bn - a year-on-year increase of 52%.
Total costs and expenses rose roughly 12% on the prior year to $33.2bn, down from the jumps of around 20% seen in recent quarters.
Chief executive Sundar Pichai said: "While, obviously, there's an impact on the economy and we're not immune to that, the engagement from advertisers across our products and with our teams has been very robust."
However, CFO Ruth Porat still cautioned that she expected "the second quarter will be a difficult one" and warned that trends seen in early April may not hold.
Alphabet shares were up 7.90% in extended trading at $1,330.01 each.