Tech giants Alphabet and Microsoft reported higher than expected quarterly revenues and the companies’ shares rose more than 5 and 9 percent respectively on Tuesday.
Alphabet, Google and YouTube parent company also launched a massive share buyback worth $70 billion, indicating its strong cash position and driving its share price.
Google Ad Revenue Remains Strong
Google’s advertising revenue surged to $54.55 billion against an analyst expectation of $53.75 billion, despite concerns over ad revenue slowdown, which was cited as one of the reasons for the massive job cuts the company announced earlier this year.
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Microsoft reported quarterly revenue of $52.9 billion, which beat analyst expectations of $51.1 billion.
In January this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed in a letter to employees that about 12,000 people will be laid off globally, accounting for more than 6 percent of the total workforce. The cash-rich tech giant also shocked the industry by adopting several other cost-cutting measures like cutting down on free snacks and workout classes for its existing employees.
Pichai Takes Home $218 Million
Meanwhile, earlier this month, reports said Sundar Pichai took home a whopping compensation of nearly $226 million in 2022. According to the tech giant’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Pichai’s compensation included stock awards of about $218 million.
In January, Microsoft said it was cutting as many as 11,000 people across many divisions. The job cuts would amount to 5 percent of the workforce of around 220,000 employees, Sky News reported. Another report said in October last year that Microsoft was laying off nearly 1,000 employees across multiple divisions of the company.
Other tech giants like Amazon and Facebook owner Meta also have laid off thousands of employees. Facebook cut more than 15,000 jobs while Amazon jobcuts went beyond 20,000.
Facebook’s Aggressive Job Cuts
Facebook parent Meta said in April it was laying off as many as 4,000 highly-skilled employees. In March, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would cut 10,000 jobs in the coming months.
Reuters
Pleased With Earnings, Says Sundar Pichai
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said he was pleased with the latest quarterly earnings. “We are pleased with our business performance in the first quarter, with Search performing well and momentum in Cloud … We introduced important product updates anchored in deep computer science and AI. Our North Star is providing the most helpful answers for our users, and we see huge opportunities ahead, continuing our long track record of innovation,” Pichai said in statement.
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Microsoft Commits More Investment, Hopes Revenue Growth Will Continue
Microsoft finance chief Amy Hood said the company is investing heavily in AI-related projects and that she expects revenue to grow over time. “As with any significant platform shift, it starts with innovation, and we’re excited about the early feedback and demand signals from the AI capabilities we’ve announced to date,” she said. “We will continue to invest in our cloud infrastructure, particularly AI-related spend, as we scale to the growing demand driven by customer transformation. And we expect the resulting revenue to grow over time.”
