Google Q1 - Strong Ad Spend

On Tuesday, Alphabet (Google) released blockbuster first quarter numbers. Revenues shot up 34% to $55.3 billion. The biggest rise was from advertising revenues which increased from $33.8 billion to $44.7 billion year-on-year, the fastest growth in four years!

The group CEO Sundar Pichai said: "Over the last year, people have turned to Google Search and many online services to stay informed, connected, and entertained. We've continued our focus on delivering trusted services to help people around the world. Our Cloud services are helping businesses, big and small, accelerate their digital transformation."

What this means is that businesses are back with larger marketing allocations towards online ads. The money is following users online. Advertising remains just over 80% of group revenues. Within advertising, YouTube grew by 49%, and now accounts for 13.4% of all advertising revenues.

YouTube's usage among North American adults has grown from 73% to 81%, making it one of the biggest winners of the pandemic. On the youth front, Google's TikTok competitor, Shorts, enjoys 6.5 billion daily views, a noteworthy increase from 3.5 billion at end of January 2021.

The company's board approved a share-buyback programme of up to $50 billion. At the current valuation, Google can no longer be considered a value play as compared to this time last year, but it still provides a cheaper entry point than most tech businesses out there. We like the stock!