After a record-breaking year 2021 with annual revenue of $257 billion — the first time in a year to exceed $200 billion — Google’s parent company reports in a file (pdf) that it started 2022 with first-quarter sales that are 23 percent higher than the same period last year, to $68 billion.
However, with costs increasing compared to 2021, net profit fell to $16.4 billion from $17.9 billion last year.
In an accompanying statement, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet said: “Q1 saw strong growth in Search and Cloud in particular, helping both people and businesses as the digital transformation continues. We will continue to invest in great products and services and opportunities. creating for partners and local communities around the world.”
Google’s Q1 earnings:
2022: $68.0 billion
2021: $55.3 billion
2020: $41.2 billion
2019: $36.3 billion
2018: $31.1 billion
2017: $24.8 billion
2016: $20.3 billion
2015: $17.3 billion
2014: $15.4 billion
2013: $12.9 billion
2012: $10.6 billion
2011: $8.6 billion
2010: $6.8 billion— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) Apr 26, 2022
Google’s search revenue brought in $39 billion, significantly ahead of its $31 billion earnings in the first quarter of 2021. YouTube’s ad revenue also increased, reaching $6.86 billion, but growing at a slower pace than the past years during the pandemic. The total ad business, including Search, YouTube and the various ad networks, brought in $54 billion in the first quarter alone.
If you’ve ever looked at the way Google reports revenue, you’ll know that it’s usually impossible to tell how well hardware products like the Pixel phone, Nest, Chromecast, and Android are doing. Android, Chrome and all of Google’s hardware initiatives are bundled together as “Other Google” as a subcategory of the general Google services, which also returns results for Search and YouTube. The “Other Google” category brought in $6.8 billion, about $400 million more than last year.
The revenue of Google Cloud, which just launched its Media CDN based on the same backbone that contains YouTube videos, has also risen, reaching $5.8 billion compared to $4 billion last year.
Alphabet’s “Other Bets,” made up of experimental projects such as self-driving company Waymo, health company Verily and Google Fiber, brought in $440 million in revenue, more than double what it reported the year before.
To develop…