Alphabet Inc., Google‘s parent company reached a market valuation of $2 trillion on Monday. According to Bloomberg, the tech giant has been “the top performer this year among the five major U.S. tech stocks by sales,” owing mostly to its cloud and advertising operations. According to Reuters, Google’s advertising revenue increased by 41% in the most recent quarter, while Google Cloud’s revenue increased by 45%. Alphabet joins Apple and Microsoft (LinkedIn’s parent company) in reaching this milestone.
Google sells more internet ads than any other company, thanks to its search engine, YouTube video service, and partnerships across the Web. Demand for its services has increased in the last year as the pandemic has driven people to spend more time online, and their new habits have stuck.
“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.”
Consumers are concerned about how Google and other companies utilize their surfing habits to profile them and then choose which advertisements to show them. In the most recent challenge, Apple Inc (AAPL), whose iPhones account for half of all smartphones in the United States, has given its consumers more control over the last few months to discontinue monitoring. The adjustment caused advertisers to rebalance their spending, which Google competitors Snap and Facebook claimed damaged their third-quarter revenue.
Apple’s efforts had a “modest impact” on YouTube ad sales, according to Alphabet’s chief financial officer, Ruth Porat. Analysts said Google was less harmed than the competition since its search engine collects data on user interests that marketers value and is unrivaled in the industry.
“They are almost completely immune to Apple’s changes,” said Collin Colburn, an analyst at tech consultancy Forrester.
Other companies saw slowdowns as advertising slashed spending as they fought to staff up and keep shelves stocked in the face of recruiting and supply-chain challenges caused by the pandemic. According to Schindler, supply-chain issues impacted mainly Google’s sales of automotive ads.
