The Covid-19 pandemic has not hampered Google’s activity. On the contrary. In 2021, its turnover reached 257 billion dollars (227.6 billion euros), up 41%. And its profit 76 billion dollars, almost doubling. Its margin is therefore 29%. Admittedly, these figures benefit in part from a comparison effect with the year 2020, where the growth of the company had slowed down a little due to the closings of businesses linked to the pandemic.
But these statistics are impressive, because Google derives most of its revenue from advertising, an activity generally sensitive to the macroeconomic context. Last quarter, that didn’t stop it from beating analysts’ estimates. “Our performance was helped by strong advertiser spending and strong consumer online activity,” explained Philipp Schindler, Head of Business Operations.
Google took advantage of confinements and telecommuting. In this context, the retail trade, stimulated by the rise of online sales, was the sector that purchased the most advertisements on the Google search engine and services, either to display brands or to trigger purchase actions. Finance, entertainment and travel were also active.
The growing cloud
Google explains its appeal by improving its services for advertisers, with the possibility for businesses to fill out their profile on Google Maps, or research specifying whether a product is ” in stock “… Investments in artificial intelligence enable scientific advances such as protein modeling, but also novelties in all of Google’s activities, argues the company: software enables audio transcriptions and translations, business customers can forecast their demand, research will integrate voice and images…
Google-owned YouTube revenue reached $8.6 billion from September to December, up 26% from 2020. This was supported by the launch of video ads with clickable links and “rapid growth” watching YouTube on the screens of connected televisions. At 5.5 billion dollars in this same fourth quarter, cloud activity grew by 47%, i.e. “more than the rhythm of the sector”, note the management.
Google is a challenger there behind Amazon and Microsoft, and remains in deficit (890 million dollars in losses), but is “optimistic”. On the hardware side, sales of the Pixel 6 phones, which integrate the latest voice assistants and in-house software, have reached “a record”. The low income of “other bets”, such as self-driving company Waymo or healthcare subsidiary Verily, shows that business remains centered on Google’s web ecosystem.
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