Alphabet sees Q3 2019 revenue boost due to YouTube, cloud, search

Google parent company Alphabet has announced its Q3 2019 results, and it looks like the key numbers are up for the most part.

The company noted $40.5 billion in revenue for Q3 2019, up 20% compared to Q3 2018. Furthermore, Alphabet reported a 23% year-on-year boost to operating income, going from $8.6 billion to $9.1 billion. The company did see a decline in its operating margin though, from 26% to 23%.

“I am extremely pleased with the progress we made across the board in the third quarter, from our recent advancements in search and quantum computing to our strong revenue growth driven by mobile search, YouTube and cloud,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai noted in a press release. The firm also acknowledged an increase in head count by almost 6,500, mostly due to its cloud operations.

Google’s “other” department, which includes hardware, cloud services, and the Play Store, saw a revenue boost from $4.6 billion to $6.4 billion. The search giant noted that the department continued to benefit from the mid-range Pixel 3a phones (h/t: Motley Fool), although it didn’t issue any specific sales information.

The firm also said that it expects the “seasonality” of its hardware business to be “moderated somewhat” due to the Pixel 3a’s release. Google traditionally released new phones closer to the end of the year, but the Pixel 3a’s release in Q2 2019 bucked that trend. So hopefully the budget Pixel line remains a fixture in 2020 and beyond. After all, Google reported in Q2 2019 that the budget Pixels helped it sell twice as many Pixel phones as Q2 2018.

Alphabet’s “other bets” segment — which includes the likes of its fiber initiative, Waymo, and Verily — saw a revenue increase from $146 million in Q3 2018 to $155 million in Q3 2019. The segment still suffered a $941 million loss in the quarter though, compared to a $727 million loss a year ago.