Thanks to high advertising revenues in the Christmas business, Google’s mother Alphabet once again earned a lot of money at the end of the year. The high profit and a healthy increase in sales are also offset by a sharp rise in costs.
In 2018, the online giant invested more than twice as much in its infrastructure as in the previous year. The goal is to continue to deliver strong growth in the future. Nevertheless, the high spending clearly causes investors concern. In electronic trading after the close of stock on Wall Street, the share lost 3.3 percent.
Prices for online advertising lowered
In the fourth quarter, Alphabet increased its operating profit compared to the previous year by 6.5 percent to 8.2 billion dollars (7.2 billion euros), as the Internet company announced yesterday after US market close. The net result was $ 8.9 billion, a large loss was incurred in the previous year due to a high depreciation due to the US tax reform.
In addition, Google has significantly reduced the cost of online advertising in light of growing competition, including from Facebook and Amazon. In the last quarter of 2018, they were 29 percent lower than in the same quarter of the previous year. The advertising revenue nevertheless increased by 20 percent to $ 32.6 billion.
