- Google’s revenue derived from promoting rose 10% yr over yr to $65.85 billion in Q3, in response to an earnings statement from parent company Alphabet.
- Search and other, the tech firm’s largest segment, was up 12% YoY to $49.39 billion, led by healthy demand from financial services and retail marketers. Video platform YouTube also recorded 12% growth for the period, reaching $8.92 billion in revenue.
- Cloud-computing services were one other brilliant spot in a quarterly report that beat analyst expectations on key metrics. However, Google is facing a cloudy future amid a regulatory crackdown on its search and ad-tech behemoths.
Viewed in vacuum, Google had a robust Q3, topping expectations on earnings and revenue and delivering strong performance on the promoting front. Looking on the broader picture, the corporate has never been in a more uncertain position.
Google in August was ruled to take care of an illegal monopoly on search, a landmark case that threatens its largest and most entrenched revenue driver. Google plans to appeal the choice that might open inroads to look rivals which have long vied for a bigger slice of a lucrative market.
The tech giant is facing a separate antitrust challenge from the Department of Justice related to its ad-tech network, which recently wrapped up a three-week trial. A pair of intense regulatory battles comes as Google tries to reshape its business around generative artificial intelligence (AI), a race to win in an emerging sector that has also been challenged within the courts.
Discussing the Q3 results with investors, executives were reticent to comment on ongoing litigation, but reinforced their argument that Google’s dominant stature is the results of a superior product.
“First of all, we plan to vigorously defend these cases. And among the early proposals from the DOJ, et cetera, have been far reaching,” said CEO Sundar Pichai on the earnings call. “I feel they may have unintended consequences, particularly to the dynamic tech sector and the American leadership there.”
Google also made organizational changes in Q3 that might affect its promoting strategy moving forward. In September, it appointed Nick Fox to guide Google’s search and promoting division, replacing Prabhakar Raghavan. Raghavan, a longtime Google executive, is now chief technologist at the corporate.
Fox lands in the highest search role as Google broadens the rollout of ads in AI Overviews, a generative AI feature that condenses answers from across the online right into a single window. Pichai stated that AI Overviews have seen strong engagement and user satisfaction up to now. Google has also implemented more AI-powered shopping into search, which could help it capitalize on the busy holiday season.
Other Google AI tools, including its Gemini software, are getting used to assist advertisers with creative asset generation, media buying and measurement. A campaign from Audi that leveraged Google AI to generate video images and texts for links appearing in long-form videos increased visits to the automaker’s website by 80% and lifted sales, in response to Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler.
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