Is is that quarterly time of the year when companies reveal how they have done over the past few months. With the fourth quarter of the year now underway, the results are coming in for the third quarter of 2016 from many of the big smartphone manufacturers including Samsung, LG, and others. Following which, Alphabet has now just posted their Q3 2016 results and on initial inspections, things are looking relatively good. In terms of the big numbers, Alphabet has posted a total revenue of $22.4 billion for the third quarter. Which while is a number that only slightly exceeds expectations, it is one which marks a fairly significantly increase compared to the same time last year. For reference, in Q3 of 2015, Google reported a total revenue of $18.6 billion. As such, the current revenue total represents a 20-percent year-over-year increase for Alphabet.
In terms of the ‘Google’ side of things specifically, Alphabet has now disclosed that Google realized revenue of $22.2 billion and an operating income of $6.7 billion. This is compared to Q3 of 2015 when revenue stood at $18.5 billion and an operating income at $5.8 billion. In terms of the bread and butter figures for Google – advertising. ‘Paid clicks’ which refers to ads that are actually clicked on was up 33-percent compared to last year. Although, the cost-per-click (amount charged) was down 11-percent on aggregate. Which means that while Google is receiving less per click, they were able to compensate by seeing the number of clicks occurring increasing. Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s CFO also noted during the release that mobile search and video were two of the aspects “powering” Google’s core advertising business in Q3.
Moving to everything else Alphabet and what is commonly referred to as their ‘Other Bets’. This segment saw an overall revenue of $197 million, which represented an operating loss of $865 million. Compared to Q3 of 2016 when revenue for Other Bets stood as $141 million and an operating loss of $980 million. Which in reality, does show that while the Other Bets did see some increase in revenue (compared to the same quarter last year), the Other Bets are still significant losses on Alphabet’s books overall. Although, this upcoming quarters will start to improve even more interesting for Google and Alphabet as they begin to account for the new hardware additions that have come through in recent weeks, like the Pixel and the Pixel XL smartphones.