Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google and Youtube, saw first-quarter sales rise to a record $55.31 billion, spiking 34 percent year on year, with profits soaring 162 percent to almost $18 billion, the company reported.
People bunkered at home spent more time shopping online, ordering food deliveries, and watching YouTube videos, analysts said, which convinced advertisers to take messages away from television and other media and pour more into Google and other online platforms.
Alphabet’s iconic services of search, maps, and Gmail accounted for $31.88 billion of the record sales, a 30-percent bump from a year before; YouTube pumped up sales to $6 billion, a 49-percent spike.
The stratospheric numbers rest on Alphabet’s market share: Google sees 92 percent of the world’s online searches, Google Maps handles 89 percent of navigation requests, and YouTube claims 73 percent of online video demand.
