Google Parent Alphabet Q4 Results Trounce Street View; Announces 20-for-1 Stock Split

(RTTNews) - Alphabet Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL), the parent company of Google, Tuesday reported its fourth-quarter results, with both profit and revenues trouncing Wall Street estimates, driven by increased ad spending and cloud revenues. The company also announced a 20-for-1 stock split.

Alphabet reported a fourth-quarter profit of $20.64 billion or $30.69 per share, a jump from last year's profit of $15.23 billion or $22.30 per share. On average, 27 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $27.48 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Revenues for the quarter surged 32 percent to $75.33 billion from $56.90 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $72.13 billion for the quarter.

Google advertising revenues surged to $61.24 billion from $46.20 billion last year, as YouTube ad and Google Search revenues also increased. Google cloud revenues rose to $5.54 billion from $3.83 billion last year.

Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google, said: "Our fourth quarter revenues of $75 billion, up 32% year over year, reflected broad-based strength in advertiser spend and strong consumer online activity, as well as substantial ongoing revenue growth from Google Cloud. Our investments have helped us drive this growth by delivering the services that people, our partners and businesses need, and we continue to invest in long-term opportunities."

Commenting on the results, CEO Sundar Pichai said, "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."

Further, Alphabet announced that the Board of Directors had approved and declared a 20-for-one stock split on each share of the company's Class A, Class B, and Class C stock. The change requires shareholder approval. On July 15, each shareholder at the close of business on July 1 will receive 19 additional shares for each share share held.

GOOG closed Tuesday's trading at $2,757.57, up $43.60 or 1.61%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $203.48 or 7.38% in the after-hours trading.