SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Alphabet, the parent company of Google, reported Wednesday that its third-quarter revenue rose 25 percent year on year to 127.58 billion U.S. dollars, driven by strong growth in its search and cloud computing businesses, while net income declined 24 percent.
According to the company's earnings report, operating income increased 30 percent to 40.58 billion dollars in the quarter ended Sept. 30, while net income fell to 26.47 billion dollars from 34.98 billion dollars a year earlier. Diluted earnings per share dropped to 2.12 dollars from 2.87 dollars. Net income available to common stockholders dropped 25 percent to 26.17 billion dollars.
The decline in net income was largely attributable to a swing from investment gains to losses. Alphabet reported a net loss of 8.66 billion dollars on equity securities, compared with a net gain of 10.73 billion dollars a year earlier.
Google Cloud revenue surged 103 percent to 30.71 billion dollars, driven by strong demand for enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and solutions. The segment's operating income jumped to 11.12 billion dollars from 3.59 billion dollars a year earlier.
Google Services revenue grew 11 percent to 96.3 billion dollars, including a 12-percent increase in Google Search and other revenue to 63.35 billion dollars.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company's AI investments were driving search query growth, with the year-on-year growth rate reaching its highest level in five years. He also said the Gemini AI app had reached 1 billion users. ■
