Like Facebook, Alphabet (GOOG, Financial)(GOOGL, Financial), the parent company of Google, benefited from the continued rebound in advertising spend and favorable year-over-year comparisons. First quarter earn-ings, reported in late April, came in shy of Wall Street estimates, though that appeared to be tied to losses in its noncore “Other Bets” segment. While Google Services—which includes its eponymous search business as well as daily-use services like Android, YouTube and others—remains the company’s profit driver, Google Cloud revenue increased by more than 50% year over year.4 The company only recently began to break out the performance of this fast-growing segment of its business, perhaps hinting at its expectations for the positive prospects of its cloud business.
From First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) Fund of America's second-quarter 2021 commentary.
