Author: Daisuke Wakabayashi / Source: New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s parent company, Alphabet, had a tumultuous 2018, with employee revolts, antitrust fines, tough privacy regulation in Europe and heightened political scrutiny in Washington.
Through it all, the company managed to produce strong financial results with the numbing consistency of the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
On Monday, Alphabet said revenue rose 22 percent to $39.27 billion in its most recent quarter, while profits swung to $8.95 billion. Last year, Alphabet reported a loss after it took a $9.9 billion charge for the repatriation of foreign earnings after changes in the tax code.
Alphabet’s financial consistency is easily explained. Google owns the internet’s ultimate beachfront property, the starting point for a lot of internet activity, whether it’s someone looking for entertainment on YouTube or hunting for product information on the Google search engine.
While Facebook and Amazon are formidable competitors, Google is the top destination for marketers looking to reach consumers online. It accounted for 31 percent of digital advertising around the world last year, according to the research firm eMarketer.
Google said advertising revenue from “Google properties” like search and YouTube was $27.02 billion in the fourth quarter, up 22 percent from a year earlier.
The company’s ad business is shifting as more consumers use mobile devices for access to the internet. Alphabet reported a 66 percent increase in clicks on its ads, although the revenue per click fell…
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