Alphabet Inc., the holding company for Google, reported a huge 45% YoY increase in net profit for Q3, at $3.98 billion compared to $2.74 billion for the same period previous year. Turnover increased 13% YoY to $18.7 billion compared to $16.5 billion, signalling a slight decrease in turnover growth from 20% for the previous year’s period. Operating margin edged upward from 23% to 25%. The management believes that a stronger US$ lowered what would otherwise have been 21% higher turnover.
In terms of segments, apart from the strength of the mobile business, Google Websites provided a significant boost in turnover of 16% YoY and 6% QoQ, within the overall advertising segment, which saw a 13% YoY growth, in line with overall turnover. While paid clicks saw an improvement overall with a 23% growth rate YoY, it paid clicks within Google network members’ websites declined 5%, well outpaced by Google Websites paid clicks at 35%.
As part of its new management and corporate structure, Alphabet announced a massive $5bn share buyback program, likely in part to make good use of it’s $72 billion stockpile of cash. Not surprisingly, shares rose dramatically; as of this writing, the last traded price was just over $706, earlier touching a high of $730.
