Alphabet Reported a Huge Q4 Beat This Week

Shares of Alphabet were heading higher in the week after the tech giant and parent company of Google reported a beat on the top and bottom lines for the fourth quarter.

The stock jumped over 9% in extended trading after the report came out an dalso announced a 20-for-1 stock split. The split will go into effect in July.

For the fourth quarter, Alphabet reported Earnings per share (EPS) of $30.69 vs $27.34 expected, according to Refinitiv. Revenue came in at $75.33 billion vs $72.17 billion expected, according to Refinitiv.

YouTube advertising revenue was $8.63 billion vs. $8.87 billion expected, according to StreetAccount while Google Cloud revenue was $5.54 billion vs $5.47 billion expected, according to StreetAccount.

Traffic acquisition costs (TAC) came in at $13.43 billion vs. $12.84 billion expected, according to StreetAccount.

Google’s advertising revenue came in at $61.24 billion for the quarter, up 33% from $46.2 billion in the same period a year earlier.

Alphabet also reported revenue growth of 32%.

The results follow a year of outperformance. Last year shares surged 65% last year, beating all other Big Tech companies and the S&P 500.

According to Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, retail was the largest contributor to year-over-year ad growth. Media and finance spending was also significant.

The company’s cloud also reported revenue growth of 45% to $5.54 billion. Operating loss in cloud came in at $890 million during the quarter, which narrowed from the $1.14 billion loss a year ago.

Google added nearly 6,500 full-time employees to its headcount said CFO Ruth Porat. Now the total headcount sits at 156,500 full-time employees. Porat said the company expects that same pace of growth in future quarters.

The company said the split doesn’t change the fundamentals of the business.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.