Google parent Alphabet’s Q1 profits dropped by more than $1 billion compared to 2021

After a record-breaking 2021 with annual revenue of $257 billion — the first time it has gone over $200 billion for a year — Google’s parent company reports in a filing (pdf) that it has started off 2022 with Q1 revenue that’s up 23 percent from the same period last year, reaching $68 billion.

However, with expenses up compared to 2021, its net profit actually dropped to $16.4 billion compared to last year’s $17.9 billion.

In an accompanying statement, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said “Q1 saw strong growth in Search and Cloud, in particular, which are both helping people and businesses as the digital transformation continues. We’ll keep investing in great products and services, and creating opportunities for partners and local communities around the world.”

Google’s search business brought in $39 billion, up significantly over the Q1 2021 result of $31 billion. YouTube advertising revenue was also up, reaching $6.86 billion, but showed slower growth than it has over the last couple of years during the pandemic. The overall advertising business, including Search, YouTube, and its various ad networks, managed to pull in $54 billion in the first quarter alone.

If you’ve ever looked at the way Google reports earnings, then you know it’s typically impossible to tell how well hardware products like the Pixel phone, Nest, Chromecast, and Android are doing. Android, Chrome, and all of Google’s hardware initiatives are bundled as “Google other” as a subcategory of overall Google services, which also breaks out results for Search and YouTube. The “Google other” category pulled in $6.8 billion, about $400 million higher than last year.

Revenue from Google Cloud, which just launched its Media CDN based on the same backbone that carries YouTube’s videos, is also up, reaching $5.8 billion compared to $4 billion last year.

Alphabet’s “Other Bets,” comprised of its experimental projects like self-driving company Waymo, health company Verily, and Google Fiber, brought in $440 million in revenue, more than double what it reported in the year prior.

Developing…