Google, Twitter and Microsoft in great shape thanks to advertising and the cloud – Orange news

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published on Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 10:44 a.m.

The digital transition accelerated by the pandemic continues to benefit tech giants, such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter, which on Tuesday published quarterly results that meet or exceed investor expectations.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw third-quarter revenue jump 41% to $ 65 billion, with the internet giant posting net profit of $ 18.9 billion, well above expectations of the market.

The world’s number one online advertising company, which is the subject of numerous investigations and prosecutions on suspicion of anti-competitive practices, continues to reap astronomical revenues.

From July to September, YouTube sold for $ 7.2 billion of finely targeted advertising space according to content and users, against 5 billion in the same period last year.

Sundar Pichai, the head of the Californian group, is also pleased that its video service has recently exceeded 50 million paying subscribers to premium offers.

“YouTube is exciting for many reasons,” said Philipp Schindler, the firm’s chief financial officer, during the analyst conference call. “It’s amazing to see the mass of content available on so many topics. And we are helping advertisers take advantage of it.”

He also indicated that a billion “shopping sessions” occur on Google every day, whether on the search engine, YouTube or another service in the company’s galaxy (vacation booking tools, mapping , emails …).

The cloud business also generated nearly $ 5 billion in revenue, up 45% year-on-year.

– Resistant –

But the engine of Google remains advertising. The Californian group holds 28.6% of the global digital advertising market in 2021, according to the firm eMarketer, just ahead of its neighbor Facebook and its 23.7% share of the pie.


This domination of the sector has earned it for several years numerous investigations, fines and prosecutions for non-compliance with competition law, from Brussels to Washington.

Google is targeted by several antitrust proceedings in the United States. Many prosecutors accuse him of exercising an “illegal monopoly” on online research and advertising, and US politicians are working on laws that could transform the digital economy and reduce the power of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon .

But neither the sanctions nor the potential threats weigh for the moment on the accounts of the juggernaut.

Neither did the recent update to the iPhone operating system, which affected Snapchat, and, to a lesser extent, Facebook.

IOS version 14.5 gives users more control over their confidential data and makes it harder for social networks to measure efficiency.

“Google has been resistant to external factors like Apple’s new privacy settings and the shortage” of electronic components, noted Paul Verna, an eMarketer analyst.

“We believe that Google’s performance signals a healthy digital advertising market, which has recovered from the pandemic and will continue to grow in the years to come.”

– The blue bird and the cloud veteran –

Twitter results also confirmed this trend.

The blue bird group recorded a very heavy loss of $ 537 million in the third quarter, linked to an amicable agreement with shareholders who considered themselves aggrieved, but its turnover, $ 1.28 billion, met expectations.

Its advertising revenues increased by 41% over one year and the platform exceeded 210 million daily users said to be “monetizable”.

“It’s too early to assess the long-term impact of (iOS) changes, but the effect on our Q3 revenue is less than we expected,” commented Ned Segal, CFO Twitter, during the conference call to present the results.


Microsoft also pleased Wall Street, with 20.5 billion in net profit from July to September, i.e. a jump of 48% of its profits in one year, for a turnover of 45.3 billion (+ 22% ).

Personal computing (Windows, computers, video games) is doing well, but it is above all its cloud services, scattered throughout all of its activities, that are fueling the company’s growth.

“With the emphasis on telecommuting now, the cloud transition is entering a new phase in the world, which will disproportionately benefit cloud veterans at Redmond,” Microsoft HQ, commented Dan Ives, Wedbush analyst. .