This growth is “fueled by a rebound in spending on digital ads and growth in its cloud business,” the report says. “Alphabet is the top performer this year among the five biggest US tech stocks by sales.” Alphabet became only the third US company to hit the market value of $2 trillion, joining Apple and Microsoft in this exclusive club, though it has dropped below that figure since. Apple was the first to break this barrier, having achieved the milestone in April last year. Microsoft followed the Cupertino-based iPhone maker in June this year. Both companies are currently valued at around $2.5 trillion.
Alphabet had a record Q3 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its after-effects, had little effect on conglomerates like Google, i.e. Alphabet. In fact, these companies boomed throughout the pandemic thanks to the wide range of products and services they offer. Alphabet reported a record revenue of $65.1 billion in the third quarter this year. That’s almost $20 billion more than $46.2 billion it reported during the same period last year. The company broke the record for the second quarter in a row. It also reported record profits for the fifth quarter in a row, raking in a staggering $18.9 billion during the period between July to September 2021. As usual, Google Search was the biggest cash cow for Alphabet this past quarter. The search business brought in $37.9 billion during the period. YouTube contributed $7.2 billion to the company’s record revenue, while the Cloud business raked in $4.99 billion. Looking at all these figures, it’s no surprise that the Google company doubled its market value in less than two years. Its market cap may have dropped below $2 trillion for the time being, but it will not be too long before Alphabet becomes a permanent member of this exclusive club. Amid all this financial boom, Google is also increasingly facing scrutiny over its business practices and data handling. Antitrust authorities in several parts of the world are investigating the company for alleged anti-competitive practices in the online advertising market as well as other businesses. Time will tell whether it manages to come out clean from all this.
