Alphabet earns record profit on Google ad surge

GOOGLE - NEW YORK. Google owner Alphabet Inc on Tuesday reported higher than expected third-quarter ad sales, a sign that the business is overcoming new limits on tracking mobile users and that online shopping is as popular as ever heading into the holiday season.

Through its search engine, YouTube video service and partnerships across the Web, Google sells more internet ads than any other company. Demand for its services surged in the past year as the pandemic forced people to spend more time online, and their new habits have persisted.

Google advertising revenue rose 41% to $53.1 billion during the third quarter. Alphabet's overall sales jumped to $65.1 billion, above the average estimate of $63.3 billion among analysts tracked by Refinitiv.

"The consumer shift to digital is real and will continue even as we start seeing people return to stores," said Philipp Schindler, Google's chief business officer. "The underlying takeaway is that people want more choice, they want more information, more flexibility, and we don't see this reversing."

Shares fell 0.93% to $2,760.19 following the after-hours release of the financial results.

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Quarterly profit was $18.936 billion or $27.99 per share, beating expectations of $24.08 per share and marking a third-straight quarter of record profit. Alphabet's profit is subject to wide fluctuations because accounting rules require the company to measure unrealized gains from its investments in startups as income.

Investors had braced for some sales challenges for Google.

Anxiety by consumers over how Google and other companies use their browsing behavior to profile them and then pick which ads to show has become widespread. In the latest challenge, Apple Inc, whose iPhones account for half of the smartphones in the United States, gave its users more control to stop tracking over the past few months. The change led advertisers to recalibrate their spending in ways that Google rivals Snap Inc and Facebook Inc said hurt their third-quarter sales.