Sundar Pichai discloses YouTube ads, and Cloud sales for the first time

Source: PTI

San Francisco: Sundar Pichai-led Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has for the first time revealed numbers for YouTube ads and its Cloud business as it registered $46.08 billion in overall sales for its fourth quarter of 2019, primarily riding on its Search ad business.

YouTube logged $15 billion in annual ad revenue, the company disclosed for the first time - a 35.8 percent growth over the prior year. For Q4 2019, YouTube reported revenue of $4.17 billion.

Google Cloud registered annual revenue of $8.9 billion - up 53 percent from the prior year, and a $10 billion revenue run rate for 2019. For Q4 2019, Google's cloud unit reported $2.6 billion in revenue.

"Our investments in deep computer science, including Artificial Intelligence, ambient computing, and cloud computing, provide a strong base for continued growth and new opportunities across Alphabet," said Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer of Google and its parent company Alphabet.

This is the first-quarter results after Pichai took over as both Alphabet and Google CEO as co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down in December.

"I am really pleased with our continued progress in Search and in building two of our newer growth areas - YouTube, already at $15 billion in annual ad revenue, and Cloud, which is now on a $10 billion revenue run rate," Pichai announced.

The lion's share of Alphabet's revenue - $37.93 billion for the quarter went to advertising.

"In 2019, we again delivered strong revenue growth, with revenues of $162 billion, up 18 percent year over year and up 20 percent on a constant currency basis," said Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google.

"To provide further insight into our business and the opportunities ahead, we're now disclosing our revenue on a more granular basis, including for Search, YouTube ads and Cloud," Porat mentioned.

Alphabet's autonomous vehicle unit Waymo and healthcare company Verily posted revenues of $659 million for 2019. Alphabet shares were down nearly five percent in after-hours trading.