±±¾©Èü³µpk10

The parent company of Google has posted a mammoth 59% annual jump in net income to $11.25bn (£8.69bn) in the third-quarter of 2020, owing to sudden rebound in advertising revenue.

Alphabet posted total revenue of $46.17bn in the three months ended September 30, or $38.01bn after removing traffic-acquisition costs (payments to affiliates and online firms that direct traffic to Google). Google revenues were $46.02bn, up 14% year-on-year. 'Other bets' revenues in the third quarter were $178m, up 15%.

Regionally, Asia-Pacific revenues rose 24% year-on-year to $8.46bn in the third quarter, representing the largest-growing region. This was followed by 15% growth in the US to $21.44bn, 11% in EMEA to $13.92bn, and 4% in "Other Americas" to $2.37bn.

The search giant's results were bolstered by an improvement in advertiser spend across all geographies and most verticals, as the world "accelerated its transition to online and digital services", Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a call with analysts on Thursday (29 October). 

Ad revenues rose 10% year-on-year to $37.1bn following two straight quarters of year-on-year declines.

Alphabet Q3 2020 earnings snapshot

• Revenue: $46.17bn
• Advertising revenue: $37.1bn 
• Net income: $11.25bn 
• Google Search and other advertising revenues: $26.3bn 
• YouTube ad revenue: $5.04bn 
• Google Cloud revenue: $3.44bn 

Chief financial officer Ruth Porat told analysts that advertiser spend "began to pick up in August", pushing Google Search and other advertising revenues up 6% year-on-year to $26.3bn.

Meanwhile YouTube ad revenue rose a significant 32% to $5.04bn, from $3.8bn the prior year. This was driven by ongoing substantial growth in direct response, followed by a rebound in brand advertising, Porat said.

"We're pleased at the degree to which advertisers have reactivated their budgets in the third quarter," Porat told analysts. "They're reacting in part to evidence that consumers are showing strong demand across nearly all verticals [on YouTube]—everything from home and garden to computer to work-from-home.

"And then YouTube's strong watch time growth enables advertisers to reach audiences that they can't reach on TV... people who are going to YouTube to learn new topics and engage with fresh entertaining content."

Beyond advertising, YouTube grew its premium paid subscribers to "over 30 million", and over 35 million including those on free trials. YouTube TV now has more than three million paid subscribers.

Google Cloud sales rose 45% year on year to $3.44bn.

Sales and marketing expenses declined by 8% year-on-year to $4.2bn as a result of a planned reduction in advertising and promotional spend implemented in Q1.

Headcount grew by 16% year on year to 132,121, with the majority of new hires being engineers and product managers, Google said.