Alphabet made history Wednesday with a quarterly profit that stretched into 12 figures for the first time in the search giant’s history—and perhaps for the first time in any company’s history. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, grew its bottom line by 298% year-over-year in the second quarter, totaling an astounding $112.1 billion in net income.
That’s more profit in three months than 459 of the Fortune 500 companies generate in top line revenue in a full year.What gives? Alphabet’s Q2 revenue increased by a very impressive 24%, to $119.8 billion, with the Google Cloud business reaching an 82% growth clip—results CEO Sundar Pichai called proof that the company’s “full stack approach to AI is delivering real, measurable value.”
Well, that—plus $99 billion in additional (or “other”) income that’s not directly produced by Alphabet’s day-to-day business operations such as search advertising and YouTube subscriptions.
A footnote in Alphabet’s Q2 earnings release provides a bit more insight about where these record-shattering profits came from. Alphabet booked $99 billion in “unrealized and realized” gains on the equity securities in its investment portfolio during the quarter—adding $77.1 billion to Alphabets overall net income after taxes, according. The investment windfall accounted for $6.26 of Alphabet’s $9.11 in earnings per share.
