Alphabet, the holding company of Google, has published good results for the third quarter. The company’s quarterly revenue increased to $ 65.12 billion from $ 46.17 billion a year earlier. Google’s advertising revenues jumped 43% last quarter, to $ 53.1 billion. In particular, the search service earned $ 37.9 billion on advertising, 44% more than a year earlier. YouTube ad revenues grew 43% to $ 7.21 billion. This figure, however, was below the average forecast of experts surveyed by Bloomberg at $ 7.5 billion. Changes to privacy settings for Apple devices had a modest impact on YouTube’s revenue. Google services revenue as a whole rose 41% to $ 59.88 billion, Google Cloud revenue jumped 45% to $ 4.99 billion, also worse than Wall Street’s average forecast of $ 5.04 billion.
TIKR:
GOOG
PRICE:
$2198
TARGET PRICE:
$3360
UPSIDE
15%
Net profit in July-September amounted to $ 18.94 billion compared to $ 11.25 billion in the same period last year. Earnings per share rose to $ 27.99 from $ 16.4 against the market forecast of $ 23.73 per share. The company’s financial performance was boosted by a significant increase in Google’s ad revenue. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, when brick-and-mortar traffic declined and shoppers switched to online shopping, advertisers began to invest more actively in digital product promotion. In the third quarter, Alphabet bought back 4.6 million of its own shares for a total of $ 12.6 billion.
Among the significant drivers for the growth of Google’s business, we highlight the benefits of corporate migration from traditional corporate advertising to digital channels. In addition, we see an increase in advertising spending from the corporate sector as business activity recovers. Google has a dominant position in the mobile advertising market thanks to its vast technological capabilities and a competitive advantage in traffic over its competitors. In our view, Google’s advertising business combined with cloud services will create the number 1 player in the market, generating double-digit revenue and EBITDA growth over the long term. We maintain our positive outlook on the company and slightly increase our target share price from $ 3,300 to $ 3,360.
Alphabet’s business is primarily focused on search, advertising, operating systems, cloud, enterprise and hardware products. The company generates revenue primarily by delivering online advertising. The company provides its products and services in more than100 languages and in more than 50 countries, regions, and territories.