Google parent company Alphabet rose in the past quarter

The advertising business at Google is in full swing in the corona pandemic. The turnover of the parent company Alphabet rose in the past quarter year-on-year by 34 percent to 55.3 billion dollars (45.7 billion euros). The boost reflects the increased online activity of consumers, said CFO Ruth Porat. Among other things, advertising customers from the retail sector have ensured the growth - but also from the travel industry, which is preparing for a relaxation of the corona restrictions. In terms of profits, there was a jump to $ 17.9 billion from $ 6.8 billion a year ago, as Alphabet announced after the US market closed on Tuesday. Around $ 4.75 billion contributed valuation gains from investments in startups. The tech group is involved in, among other things, the Stripe payment platform, which was valued at $ 95 billion in the latest financing round. At Google, where practically the entire alphabet business still runs, revenues from the search engine business rose by 30 percent to almost 32 billion dollars. The video platform Youtube contributed a good six billion dollars - around 50 percent more than a year earlier. During the pandemic, people spent more time on YouTube and other video offers. Most recently, Youtube had two billion active users at least once a month. More than a billion hours of video content was streamed daily. In the competition with the Tiktok video app, the short clips from Youtube Shorts now reach 6.5 billion views per day. In the cloud business, sales rose by 46 percent to a good four billion dollars. At the same time, the division drove an operating loss of $ 974 million. With Alphabet's "other bets" - promising business ideas such as self-driving cars or delivery drones - sales rose by around 47 percent to $ 198 million. At the same time, their operating losses also increased from $ 1.12 billion to $ 1.14 billion. Investors rewarded the numbers with a price increase of around four percent at times in after-hours trading. Alphabet also announced a share buyback with a volume of up to $ 50 billion. Buybacks traditionally support the course.