The company's turnover has increased by 9% in the year, to 307,394 million dollars (about 283,400 million euros at the current exchange rate), surpassing the bar of 300,000 million in revenue for the first time.
The group's net profit, for its part, increases by 23%, to $73,795 million, which in this case falls somewhat below the record results of 2021, partly due to extraordinary charges for staff reduction and rationalization of office space.
The operating result has broken records, increasing by 13%, to 84,293 million dollars.
The fourth quarter of the year has been especially brilliant, with very strong growth in revenues (13%, to $86,310 million) and profits (52%, to $20,687 million).
The rise in digital advertising, both in the search business and on YouTube, has contributed, as well as the acceleration of the cloud computing business, linked in part to artificial intelligence, which disappointed in the third quarter.
The market, however, expected even more and investor reaction has been somewhat skeptical, at least initially.
CEO Sundar Pichai said: “We are pleased with the continued strength in Arch Search and the growing contribution of YouTube and Cloud.
Each of them is already benefiting from our investments and innovation in AI.
As we enter the Gemini era, the best is yet to come.”
“We ended 2023 with very strong fourth quarter financial results, with consolidated fourth quarter revenue of $86 billion, a 13% year-over-year increase.
“We remain committed to our work to sustainably reengineer our cost base while investing to support our growth opportunities,” said CFO Ruth Porat.
The company announced a workforce reduction a year ago for which it has recorded employee severance payments and related charges worth $2.1 billion in 2023. In addition, it is taking steps to optimize its office space around the world , resulting in contract termination payments and exit expenses of $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter, bringing the annual total to $1.8 billion, not counting another $269 million in accelerated rent and accelerated depreciation.
For the year as a whole, finally, the workforce has gone from the 190,234 employees at the end of 2022 to the 182,502 at the end of the year.
Although Alphabet announced 12,000 layoffs, the net workforce reduction, taking into account new hires, was ultimately around 7,700 people.
[Breaking news.
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