This is simply a great performance: Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made a huge statement for the digital economy, hitting $56.9 billion revenue for its 2020 fourth quarter. Advertising drove it with YouTube and Google Search the blood and spinal cord of the Google central nervous system of generating alpha.
Of course, what is also missing there is that Google devalued many ad clicks for publishers. If you were paid $1 for 1,000 views on Dec 31 2019, by Jan 1 2020, Google required you hit 2,000 views. That power and capacity to change the “ad currency” is the reason why Google could hit these numbers.
I am nearly confident that Google did not serve more adverts on absolute volume. Rather, it cut the hands of its partners, especially publishers because of its superior positioning in the market as the super aggregator.
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Yet, it is all free market – and Google should be celebrated for putting itself in this position to win.
Google rode a surge in online holiday spending to record revenue in the fourth quarter, even though it disclosed for the first time continued losses in its closely watched cloud division.
The internet titan’s earnings, released Tuesday afternoon, reflected a continuing recovery in global ad spending that took a hit in early 2020 when people paused travel plans and other purchases in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Google parent Alphabet Inc. posted a record $56.9 billion revenue, up from $43.2 billion a year ago. The company’s advertising units pulled in $46.2 billion, up nearly 22% from a year earlier. Analysts had forecast $52.7 billion in revenue, including $42.3 billion from advertising, according to FactSet.
Alphabet’s profit also rose, to $15.7 billion, from $9.3 billion a year ago. Analysts had expected $11.9 billion.
Ruth Porat, Google’s financial chief, said the company’s search and YouTube units drove its performance in the quarter. “It was a great end to a challenging year,” she said.
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Most corporations run on the construct of stealing from you or demeaning you, and then turning around to become philanthropic or generous.
Which one is more nobler and more honourable: paying employees and partners well or cutting their own earnings only to announce big things you are doing to change the world?
The cliche has always been that companies have fiduciary responsibility for their shareholders, but how many shareholders or investors would pull their investments because a company pays its employees and partners handsomely? Now Google has generated more revenues and profits, only that its partners earned less, while needing to do more; this is exploitation.
Before we blame it on capitalism, we first need to study and examine the quality of humans who posture as capitalists, capitalism doesn’t endow you with mean spirit; these things are human flaws and inadequacies.
Good numbers from Google, only that the party might not be taking place in its partners/publishers homes.
In this world, those who tell you about kindness, empathy, diversity, etc are even where you find more of vile and malevolent creatures.
The saints don’t lecture you on becoming a saint, rather it’s the sinners that have assumed that role…