Google surpassed $100 billion in quarterly sales for the first time. Expansion of the artificial intelligence (AI) market and strength in the cloud institutional sector drove the results.
Alphabet, Google's parent company, said on the 29th (local time) that third-quarter results came in at $102.3 billion in sales (about 146 trillion won), $35 billion in net income, and earnings per share (EPS) of $2.87. That beat Wall Street's average forecast of $99.89 billion compiled by LSEG and was up 16% from a year earlier.
Cloud institutional sector sales rose 34% from a year earlier to $15.2 billion. Notably, the order backlog at the end of the quarter reached $155 billion, leading to a strong outlook for future growth.
The search and advertising institutional sector posted $56.6 billion, remaining the largest revenue source, and YouTube ad sales were $10.3 billion. In contrast, experimental businesses such as the Autonomous Driving car "Waymo" recorded $344 million in sales and an operating loss of $1.426 billion.
CEO Sundar Pichai said, "We achieved double-digit growth across all major businesses," and noted, "Our AI-first strategy is delivering results quickly." Pichai also said the AI chatbot "Gemini" surpassed 650 million monthly active users (MAU), and paid subscribers to services such as "Google One" and YouTube Premium exceeded 300 million.
Google said the results include a $3.5 billion penalty surcharge imposed by the European Union (EU) executive commission. Alphabet shares jumped more than 6% in after-hours trading to close at $291.16.