Alphabet Inc has posted revenue of $69.787 billion (+3 percent), operating income of $17.415 billion (+25 percent) and net income of $15.051 billion during January-March 2023.
Alphabet reported a dip in first-quarter digital advertising sales to $54.548 billion from $54.661 billion a year earlier. It was the third such decline for Google since it went public in 2004, but was the second in a row following a fourth-quarter ad sales drop of 3.6 percent.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, said: “We are pleased with our business performance in the first quarter, with Search performing well and momentum in Cloud. We introduced important product updates anchored in deep computer science and AI.”
Alphabet has generated revenue of $40.359 billion from Google Search, $6.693 billion from YouTube ads, $7.496 billion from Google network, $7.41 billion from Google Cloud and $7.413 billion from other areas.
Advertisers, who contribute the bulk of Alphabet’s sales, have cut their digital advertisement spending in response to a shift by consumers back to in-store shopping in the wake of eased masking and other restrictions. Marketers are experimenting more with new platforms like TikTok, which attracts a more youthful audience.
Google has been looking to keep a tight control on costs amid recession fears and in January decided to cut about 12,000 jobs. Google Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat told investors on a conference call that she expected capital expenditures this year to be “modestly higher” than in 2022.
Google informed that the number of employees touched 163,906 in January-March quarter of 2023 vs 190,711 in the same period previous year.
Alphabet has sought to pare spending, including on employee perks and use of company resources. Ruth Porat told workers in an internal email in March that they should anticipate additional cost-cutting measures in the coming months.
