Alphabet reports $65B in revenue amid Google's ongoing legal battles

Google's revenue grew only slightly from last quarter.

What you need to know

• Alphabet releases its Q3 2021 financial earnings report.
• The company made more than $65 billion in revenue, up 41% from the same quarter last year.
• Overall revenues grew only slightly from Q2, which brought in $61 billion in revenue.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced its Q3 2021 financial earnings on Tuesday, reporting revenue of more than $65 billion.

That represents a growth of 41% compared to the same quarter last year, which raked in just over $46 billion. As usual, those numbers were driven by ads, primarily with Google Search, while YouTube contributed more than $7 billion.

Compared to last quarter, growth seems fairly stagnant, with much of Google's divisions growing in revenue only slightly. During the earnings call, there were questions about whether iOS 14's privacy shanges had a negative effect on Googe's revenue for its services. However, according to Google CFO, Ruth Porat, the changes only had a "modest impact" on YouTube's revenues.

Additionally, Google CEO Sunday Pichai notes that YouTube still has a lot of potential to grow, particularly with Shorts, even if it's not immediately apparent in the face of tough competition like TikTok and Snapchat.

There's obviously newer opportunities such as shopping which we are investing in, and Shorts represents an additional early but important area for us from an investment and growth standpoint. So I feel the fundamentals of the platform are strong. With the long-term view, I see this as an area where we have more upside, and so we'll continue on investments with that in mind.

Still, it's impressive that Google continues to increase its revenue, which has just recorded its fifth record-breaking quarter in a row, despite its ongoing legal troubles.

Notably, the Google Cloud business continues to lose money for the company, though it raked in more revenue than last year. However, Porat remains "pleased with the trends we are seeing in GCP, or customer wins."

At the moment, Google is facing a bevy of antitrust lawsuits over its anticompetitive practices as they relate to its grip on app distribution on the best Android phones, as well as its dominance in the digital ads space.

Amid heightened scrutiny over its practices, the company recently announced Play Store fee changes that will see lower service fees for many developers, although the company was mum on how that would affect its revenues going forward.

Of course, Pichai took a moment to call out its latest Google Pixel 6, which the company continues to ramp up marketing for. Google lumps Pixel and hardware sales under "other" on its reports, so it's hard to say where sales are at. However, Porat expects "ongoing drivers of revenue growth to be hardware due to the benefit from the holiday selling season and inclusion of Fitbit, as well as YouTube subscriptions."