Alphabet Inc. jumped the most in almost two years to a record high after the Google parent posted fourth-quarter results that showed the resilience of its advertising business in the face of economic upheaval.
Sales, excluding partner payouts, rose 33% to $61.9 billion, compared with the $59.4 billion average analyst estimate. Google’s advertising revenue also grew by 33% during the holiday quarter, despite the disruptions to its biggest categories, travel and retail, from the spread of the omicron Covid-19 variant and supply chain crunches. The company also declared a 20-for-1 stock split.
Alphabet has continued to profit from the major trends that emerged during the pandemic, as people increasingly turned to online shopping and as marketing and business software budgets shifted to the internet. Google posted robust gains for two critical divisions, cloud and YouTube. But the company’s main contributor was its flagship search business, which is seeing gains from a deep investment in e-commerce.
