Google ad revenues up despite net income dip

Google’s advertising revenues surged to US$33 billion for the third quarter of 2019, contributing to its parent company Alphabet’s 20% year-over-year revenue rise to $40.4 billion.

"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," said Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google.

The majority of Alphabet’s revenue has historically come from advertising.

Google’s Q3 advertising revenues rose by roughly 17% from the same three-month period in 2018.

Despite this, Alphabet’s net income for the quarter was $7 billion, down from $9 billion recorded in Q3 2018.

According to marketing solutions firm Merkle, spending on Google search ads by major tech players grew 16% in Q3 2019, up from 15% in Q2 2019.

Mobile has also been a growing segment for tech companies spending on Google ads, according to Mark Ballard, VP of research at Merkle.

"Mobile has been a key point, far outpacing desktop as far as advertising spending growth," he said.

He also noted that Google US ad search spend had begun to show signs of growth after nearly two years of deceleration.