Alphabet has released its financial results for the first quarter of 2018, showing strong revenue growth on the global scale and expressing optimism for future projects. On a constant currency basis, adjusted for exchange rate fluctuations, the company reports a year-over-year growth of 23-percent – landing at $31.146 billion. Operating margins, on the other hand, were up by 22-percent with a reported operating income of just over $7 billion. Net income was up by nearly $4 billion over that same period. It goes without saying that a substantial percentage of the company’s financial assets are derived from paid clicks. Those were up 8-percent quarter-over-quarter and a whopping 59-percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, the costs to the company for each click and impression fell by 7-percent and 10-percent, respectively.
However, although the operating margins listed above were up for the quarter, that’s one figure which didn’t do so well on an annual basis. In fact, operating margins are down by a full 5-percent for that period. Bearing that in mind, Alphabet’s total assets and properties revenues also rose considerably over the past quarter. The latter of those rose by nearly $4.5 billion over the past year while assets saw gains of just over $9.6 billion – landing at almost $207 billion. That’s in no small part due to the re-absorption of the smart home accessories maker, Nest, according to the report. Even Alphabet’s losses also seem to have improved from the previous year and the sum of its liabilities only rose by around 3-percent. Free cash flow rounded out to around $4.34 billion for the quarter.
Looking forward to the next quarter and the rest of 2018, Ruth Porat, filling the role of the chief financial officer for both Alphabet and Google is hopeful. While no specifics were outlined, Porat says that the company has seen a lot of opportunities to keep investing in up-and-coming companies and technologies. Thanks in part to the strength of this quarter’s growth, Alphabet should have the liquidity and resources needed to take those investments on. The positive outlook and figures are good news since the company has been undergoing litigation processes over the past several months for a wide variety of reasons. Some of those have cost the company a sizeable amount of money and it wasn’t clear what kind of impact the rulings would have on the business. In the meantime, the full report can be accessed via the button below for those who might be interested in the full details.
Read the full report (PDF)