Alphabet revenue up 24% YoY in Q4 2017, Google ad, cloud business remain strong

Google's parent company, Alphabet today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. The company posted a record 24% increase in revenue with $32.323 billion compared to the $26.064 billion in Q4 2016. The company posted revenues of $110.9 billion in complete 2017.  Google’s core ad business remains strong pulling 27.27 billion in revenue with 24% YoY growth. TAC or traffic acquisition costs continue to grow as Google shifts its business focus to advertising and mobile search ads which resulted in nearly $6.5 billion, up 33% YoY in the Q4 which ended on December 31st, 2017. However, the company posted a net income of $3,020 billion which is a dip compared to the $5,333 billion YoY. The company currently has 80,110 employees and it reported earnings per share of $9.70 which is less compared to $9.90 which was expected. Alphabet mentioned that the one-time tax hit caused a net loss of $3.02 billion in the fourth quarter. However, the revenue grew $32.323 billion which is higher than analyst expectations of $31.86 billion. Google's cloud business, and sales of products like the Pixel smartphone and Google Home, and its Google Play app store, reported $4.69 billion in revenue. Other bets revenue reported a revenue of $409 million in Q4 2017 on operating losses of $916 ...