Google parent Alphabet posts impressive Q1 earnings despite advertiser boycott

GoogleThe Alphabet money train is showing no signs of slowing down, despite advertisers boycotting its platforms due to various controversies surrounding ad placement and brand safety.

Google’s parent company exceeded Wall Street expectations in the first quarter. According to Alphabet’s Q1 earnings report, the tech giant reached revenues of $24.75bn at $7.73 earnings per share – up 22 per cent year-on-year. This beats Wall Street’s predictions of $24.2bn at $7.40 earnings per share.

“Our excellent results represent a terrific start to 2017, with revenues up 22 per cent versus the first quarter of 2016 and 24 per cent on a constant currency basis,” said Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet. “We clearly continue to benefit from our ongoing investments in product innovation and have great momentum in our new businesses across Alphabet.”

Google’s advertising revenues reached $21.41bn, up from $18.02bn the previous year, despite advertisers turning away from it. This shows that Alphabet and Google haven’t initially seen any impact from the advertiser boycott – though it has been predicted that the company could lose up $750m across the year as a result.

Elsewhere, Google made ‘other’ revenues of $3.1bn and $244m from ‘other bets’. These two areas cover Cloud, Play, hardware, and things like self-driving cars. Although seeing positive growth in both areas, Google recorded an operating loss of $855m on its other bets.