Google has done it again — raking in more money than ever before for the second quarter in a row as the COVID-19 pandemic continues on. Alphabet’s Q3 2021 earnings show an all-time record revenue of $65.1 billion and record profits for the fifth quarter in a row at $18.9 billion.
As we mentioned last quarter, the growth we’re seeing in 2021 is unusually large: a huge leap over 2020.
Google’s revenue in Q3
2021: $65.1 billion
2020: $46.2 billion
2019: $40.5 billion
2018: $33.7 billion
2017: $27.8 billion
2016: $22.5 billion
2015: $18.7 billion
2014: $16.5 billion
2013: $13.8 billion
2012: $13.3 billion
2011: $9.7 billion
2010: $7.3 billion
2009: $5.9 billion— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) October 26, 2021
Revenue increased 41 percent year over year; profits increased 69 percent.
Proportionally, Google’s businesses seem to all be doing roughly the same was they were last quarter, just slightly better in each case — like $37.9 billion for Google’s all-important search business this quarter compared to $35.8 billion last quarter. (It’s the jump year-over-year that’s boggles the mind: search is pulling in $11 billion more this year than it did last year at this time.)
YouTube advertising revenue went up from $7 billion last quarter to $7.2 billion this quarter, despite some fears that Apple’s iOS Ad Tracking Transparency would have hit YouTube like it hit Snap as users get the ability to easily opt out. But perhaps YouTube would have seen even bigger gains without the feature; perhaps we’ll find out on the earnings call.
We’ll add some specifics here, and we’ll also be on the earnings call at 1:30PM PT to see if Google adds more color.
Google is facing down a bevy of antitrust lawsuits arguing that at least some of these are ill-gotten gains. They suggest Google boosted its own ad buying system over competitors, that it tracked users even in incognito mode, collected location data even after users turned off location sharing, tried to pay off phone makers and app developers, and more. Most recently, it was accused of throttling webpage load speeds to promote its own AMP competitor.
Developing…