Google’s parent company Alphabet reported the first revenue decline in the company’s 22-year history when it released its Q2 earnings on Thursday.
During the second quarter of this year, Alphabet made $38.3 billion in revenue, compared to $38.9 billion during the same time last year, which is a 2% decrease. Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google, Ruth Porat, said in the earnings call that a gradual improvement in advertising largely drove revenue.
Alphabet reported advertising revenue of $29.9 billion for the second quarter, compared to $32.5 billion in the second quarter of 2019. During a hearing over antitrust concerns on Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google earns more than $100 billion in ad revenue a year.
Google was grilled by Congress, along with other Big Tech companies like Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, during Wednesday’s hearing. U.S. Representative David Cicilline (D-R.I.) asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai about allegations that Google steals content from other businesses, including a scandal over Yelp restaurant reviews in 2010.
Looking forward to the remainder 2020, Google will slow down the pace of its hiring as a way to pull back on some of its investments, according to Bloomberg.
This month, Google announced its employees would work from home until July 2021, which affects almost all of the company’s 200,000 employees.
