Final Up to date: January 31, 2024, 18:27 IST
San Francisco, California, USA
Google is spending billions to repay the individuals who have been requested to depart
Google has been on a serious layoff spree since 2023 and issues are wanting bleak this yr as effectively. This is the associated fee concerned within the course of.
Google spent $2.1 billion on severance and different bills because it laid off greater than 12,000 staff final yr. The corporate will spend one other $700 million on worker severance costs for the primary quarter of this yr.
Alphabet (the father or mother firm of Google) posted revenues of $307 billion for the total yr 2023, up 9 per cent in comparison with 2022.
“We ended with a robust fourth quarter (quarter ended December 31) with consolidated revenues of $86.3 billion, up 13 per cent versus final yr in each reported and fixed forex. Search remained the most important contributor to income progress,” mentioned Ruth Porat, Chief Monetary Officer.
At this level within the quarter, the corporate estimates that severance-related bills shall be roughly $700 million within the first quarter “as we’ve continued these efforts”.
“We are going to proceed to spend money on high engineering. In order that’s type of the massive one, in case you begin with product prioritization and organizational design, which is why additionally the observe concerning the severance-related expense, which helps pave the way in which as we’re persevering with to do the work that we’re doing,” Porat advised analysts through the earnings name late on Tuesday.
Inside Google Companies, revenues have been $76.3 billion, up 12 per cent. Google Search and different promoting revenues of $48 billion within the quarter have been up 13 per cent, led once more by progress in retail. YouTube promoting revenues of $9.2 billion have been up 16 per cent, pushed by each direct response and model promoting, mentioned the corporate.
“Subscriptions are rising strongly, powered by YouTube Premium and Music, YouTube TV, and Google One. Three, Cloud, which crossed $9 billion in revenues this quarter and noticed accelerated progress, pushed by our gen AI and product management,” mentioned Sundar Pichai, Alphabet and Google CEO.
“We’ve lengthy led the way in which in utilizing AI to enhance lots of our merchandise from search to advertisements to most of our client and enterprise merchandise, serving to billions of individuals already,” he added.
