Google Cloud revenue climbs 54% in Q2

Alphabet executives detailed plans to continue aggressive investments in the company’s Google Cloud business, as the unit posted a 54% year-on-year jump in revenue in Q2.

Google Cloud revenue for the quarter totaled $4.63 billion, up from $3.0 billion in the year-ago period. Though the company remained in the red, it slashed its net loss by nearly 59% from $1.43 billion in Q2 2020 to $591 million.

Consolidated Alphabet revenue jumped 62% to $61.9 billion, with net income skyrocketing 166% to $18.5 billion. Advertising accounted for the bulk of sales, raking in $50.4 billion compared to $29.9 billion in Q2 2020.

During an earnings call, CFO Ruth Porat noted growth in its Google Cloud Platform segment again surpassed overall cloud gains “reflecting significant growth in both infrastructure and platform services.” Looking ahead, she said the company intends “to continue to invest aggressively including expanding our go-to-market organization, our channel expansion, our product offerings and our compute capacity.”

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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai added the company views Google Cloud’s security features as a key point of differentiation as it aims to gain share in the market, noting enterprise executives are keenly aware of vulnerabilities following recent attacks.

“Cyber threats increasingly are on the mind of not just CIOs but CEOs across our partners. So it’s definitely an area where we are seeing a lot of conversations, a lot of interest…so a definite source of strength and you’ll see us continue to invest here,” he said.

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Google Cloud holds around 7% market share in the cloud services segment, according to a Canalys report released in April. It trails Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, which hold 32% and 19% market share, respectively.

Microsoft posted results Tuesday showing revenue for its Intelligent Cloud increased 30% to $17.4 billion. The company stated Azure revenue grew of 51%, but did not break out a dollar figure. Amazon is set to report earnings on Thursday.