Second quarter another strong showing for Alphabet

Plans to acquire HubSpot dead in the water as Wiz eyed as possible acquisition target

Trade

Google parent Alphabet saw a sharp increase in revenue thanks to AI-powered cloud computing services and a rebound in the advertising market. Revenue at the company headed by CEO Sundar Pichai rose 14% to $84.7 billion, as expected; profit came in at $23.6 billion.

Search ads accounted for $48.5 billion and YouTube advertising for $8.6 billion. There was also hefty growth for Google Cloud, with the division booking $10.3 billion. Alphabet will look on these figures as a double win following the reduction in its headcount from 181,798 a year ago compared with 179,582 today.

Alphabet’s plan to acquire HubSpot will reportedly not be followed up. The two parties had been talking to each other since April this year about a possible acquisition of the CRM vendor. HubSpot focuses mainly on the SMB segment and an acquisition would allow Google to compete with Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.

Alphabet had additionally set its sights on acquiring security provider Wiz for about $23 billion. That would be its largest acquisition for Google ever.

Wiz offers an all-in-one approach to cloud security, processing data from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and other cloud platforms. But even this deal does not appear to be materialising. ‘Saying no to such offers is difficult, but with our exceptional team, I am confident in making that choice,’ Wim CEO Assaf Rappaport wrote.

Google will launch new Pixel devices with AI capabilities next month.

Read More: Alphabet Results