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Google parent Alphabet on Tuesday reported sales of nearly $85 billion for the second quarter, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations by about $640 million, according to FactSet consensus estimates.
“Our strong performance this quarter highlights ongoing strength in Search and momentum in Cloud,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement. The company’s Cloud revenue passed the $10 billion mark for the first time, and the division’s operating profit topped $1 billion. And Google’s company-wide second-quarter profit jumped nearly 30% to $23.6 billion from the same period last year. That strength was driven by AI — something Wedbush, J.P.Morgan, and Bank of America analysts had rightfully expected. AI was a top focus of Google executives’ call with investors on Tuesday after the bell.
“Our AI infrastructure and generative AI solutions for cloud customers have already generated billions in revenues and are being used by more than 2 million developers,” said Pichai. Pichai flexed Google’s customer roster on the call, listing off the company’s AI customers including Deutsche Bank, Best Buy, and the U.S. Air Force. The CEO said Google Search’s new AI tool, AI Overviews — which faced some embarrassing issues in its initial rollout — saw “great progress” and boosted user engagement for 18- to 24-year-olds.
Google’s solid performance in the three months ended June 30 follows its sunny first-quarter earnings report in April, when the company reported a surge in profits of 60%, partly thanks to AI. The company’s stock price rally that followed pushed its market capitalization past the $2 trillion mark to join Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
Google has aggressively worked to dominate the emerging industry for generative artificial intelligence. In 2024, it announced a range of new and updated AI products— its latest is a Gemini AI chatbot that Google claims is 20% faster than the newest ChatGPT. Google also previewed a universal AI assistant of the future at its developer conference, Google I/O, that would be able to see and talk through a user’s smart glasses.
Prior to Google’s second-quarter earnings report, the company got a bit of bad news when its largest-ever acquisition fell through. Google’s $23 billion bid to purchase the Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz was rejected.
By the numbers
$84.7 billion: Google parent Alphabet’s second-quarter revenue, a 14% jump from the same period last year
$23.6 billion: Alphabet’s quarterly profit, up 28.6% from 2023
$10.3 billion: Google Cloud’s record-breaking second-quarter revenue