Profits at Google's Parent Firm Jump 68%

A continued rebound in digital ad spending at Google drove its parent company's profit up 68% in the third quarter. Alphabet Inc. said Tuesday that it earned $18.94 billion, or $27.99 per share, in the July-September period. Revenue rose 41% to $65.12 billion, more than $1.5 billion more than analysts had forecast, the AP reports. Google is the world's dominant search engine, owns the biggest mobile operating system in Android and runs the behemoth video site YouTube. It holds 29% of the global $455 billion digital ad market, according to eMarketer, followed closely by Facebook. Both tech giants are benefiting as companies that scaled back on advertising last year during the pandemic pump more money into marketing.

The advertising business, the core of the company, rose 43% to $53.13 billion, with retail "by far" the largest contributor to that growth, said Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler. The company sees a lot of potential in retail, including YouTube ads that let users buy directly from creators' videos. YouTube's ad revenue jumped 43%, to $7.21 billion, in the most recent quarter. Google is also trying to get a bigger piece of the cloud-computing business, where it competes with Microsoft and Amazon. That division climbed 45% to $4.99 billion, with an operating loss of $644 million.

Microsoft. meanwhile, says growth in its cloud computing business helped push its profit up 24% in the July-September quarter over the same time last year, per the AP. The company reported quarterly profit of $17.2 billion Tuesday, or $2.27 per share, beating Wall Street expectations of $2.08 per share. Microsoft profits have soared throughout the pandemic thanks to ongoing demand for its software and cloud computing services for remote work and study. Revenue from Microsoft's LinkedIn jobs networking service increased 42% from the same time last year. (More Google stories.)