What you need to know
- Alphabet announced its fourth-quarter financial earnings on Tuesday.
- The company made more than $75 billion in Q4 and nearly doubled its yearly revenue.
- CEO Sundar Pichai notes that the Pixel had record quarterly sales.
Google's parent company, Alphabet, announced its fourth-quarter financial earnings on Tuesday, raking in more than $75 billion in revenue. Much of that was from Google's Search business and ads, but the Pixel 6 managed to make a dent.
Unsurprisingly, Search was the biggest contributor, bringing in more than $43 billion, with YouTube ads managing over $8.6 billion in revenue. This comes shortly after the company announced a staggering five trillion views of its ever-growing YouTube Shorts. The company has been pumping money into the medium through initiatives like the Shorts Creator Fund, which helps creators make money off their content through compelling Shorts.
Google is also winding down YouTube Originals content as it turns its focus towards helping creators.
As for Google Cloud, Alphabet has continued to pump money into the business at a loss, although it has seen some upside though the year as losses narrowed. Revenue also grew this quarter for the division when compared to Q3 2021 earnings. However, in the fourth quarter, the division operated at a higher loss of $890 million compared to last quarter, which is still an improvement over the same quarter last year.
CEO Sundar Pichai notes in the press release that the company's latest Pixel phones manage to defy the odds with a record-breaking quarter, despite the phones being relatively hard to come by in the early days as a result of the chip shortage:
"Our deep investment in AI technologies continues to drive extraordinary and helpful experiences for people and businesses, across our most important products. Q4 saw ongoing strong growth in our advertising business, which helped millions of businesses thrive and find new customers, a quarterly sales record for our Pixel phones despite supply constraints, and our Cloud business continuing to grow strongly.
Record Pixel sales are also notable given the bevy of issues the latest Pixel flagships have fun into, but it shows that the drastic redesign and Google's aggressive marketing have been enough to entice users to look past the problems.
Worth a look
The new Pixel 6 is one of Google's latest smartphones, offering a unique design, upgraded 50MP camera, and powerful Tensor chip. With the Pixel 6, you'll be among the first to try out new Android features, and you'll get years of support from Google.
