Google parent Alphabet reported a strong fourth quarter for fiscal year 2021, in line with a broader tech industry rebound after seeing a drop across the stock market last month.
YouTube advertising revenue was $8.63 billion, slightly lower than the $8.87 billion expected by analysts. That was up from $6.88 billion in Q4 the previous year.
The company’s quarterly revenue was $75 billion, up 32% year over year, with the Google parent pointing to strong advertiser spend and high consumer online activity. Much of its revenue growth is also due to its Google Cloud services.
By comparison, YouTube is beating Netflix in quarterly revenue. Netflix had a $7.7 billion revenue in Q4 2021, up from $6.6 billion the previous year.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, said in a statement: “Our deep investment in AI technologies continues to drive extraordinary and helpful experiences for people and businesses, across our most important products. Q4 saw ongoing strong growth in our advertising business, which helped millions of businesses thrive and find new customers, a quarterly sales record for our Pixel phones despite supply constraints, and our Cloud business continuing to grow strongly.”
Last week, Microsoft and Apple reported strong earnings results and have set a positive tone so far, despite ongoing workforce and supply chain issues.
Alphabet’s earnings per share was $30.69, higher than analyst expectations of $27.34, according to Refinitiv. Revenue also beat estimates at $75.33 billion versus the $72.17 billion expected. Google’s advertising revenue was at $61.24 billion for this quarter, up 33% from $46.2 billion the previous year.
Google Cloud revenue was $5.54 billion, slightly higher than expectations of $5.47 billion. The company beat cloud unit estimates with revenue rising some 45%.