Alphabet the parent company of Google, reported Monday that its profits hit $9.4 billion in the first three months of 2018, up from $5.4 billion a year earlier. The company’s bottom line was helped by the continued strength of its ad sales business. Google’s sales for the quarter jumped 26% to $31.1 billion. Its ads business accounted for $26.6 billion of that.
Alphabet also benefited from a lower effective corporate tax rate of 11%, compared to 20% a year earlier, thanks tax reform. The stock was effectively flat in after hours trading following the results.
Google is the first of the major tech platforms to report earnings since news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
While the data debacle focused on Facebook, it also upended the stocks of companies like Google and Twitter, which primarily make money by collecting personal information and using it to sell targeted ads.
The Cambridge Analytica story broke in mid-March, making it unlikely to affect the tech companies’ financial results for the first quarter.
But Wall Street remains on edge about the potential for regulation. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have turned their attention to data privacy protections.
