Google parent company Alphabet enjoyed a massive 41 per cent year-on-year increase during 2021, to post a whopping US$257 billion in revenue.
This marks the first time the company has broken the $200 billion a year barrier, amidst rapid growth – in 2016, the company was ‘only’ making a scant $90 billion.
In the December quarter, Alphabet reported revenue of $75.3 billion, up 32 per cent from 2020.
“Q4 saw ongoing strong growth in our advertising business, which helped millions of businesses thrive and find new customers, a quarterly sales record for our Pixel phones despite supply constraints, and our Cloud business continuing to grow strongly,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement accompanying the earnings release.
The company doesn’t split apart its various business interests, lumping earnings in broad, vague categories like ‘Google – other” in its breakdowns.
The company also declared a 20-for-1 stock split.
The stock split will give $0.001 for each share of the company’s Class A stock, Class B stock and Class C stock.
“The reason for the split is it makes our shares more accessible,” Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s CFO, said of the one-time deal.