SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 2, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Google's parent firm Alphabet
announced quarterly profits Tuesday that beat expectations and nearly doubled
in 2021 -- after a booming holiday season for the online ads giant facing
anti-trust regulation scrutiny.

  The tech giant had net income of $20.6 billion on revenue that grew 32
percent to $75 billion in the final quarter of 2021, ending the year with a
total of $76 billion in profit.

  That was nearly double the $40 billion annual profit reported for 2020, as
the pandemic had already accelerated a shift to online shopping, working and
learning that also benefited fellow giants like Amazon and Facebook.

  Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai cited "strong growth in our advertising
business... a quarterly sales record for our Pixel phones despite supply
constraints, and our cloud business continuing to grow strongly" for the
success.

  In all, Google earned more than $61 billion in advertising revenue, mostly
from online search and its video platform, while its cloud business grew by
45 percent to $5.5 billion in revenue.

  Google's dominance online has powered it to new heights during the pandemic
period, but has also left it in the sights of regulators around the world.

  Pichai said during an earnings call that Alphabet is open to "sensible"
regulation by Congress but is "genuinely concerned that they could break a
wide range of popular services we offer to our users."

  Some regulatory proposals could have unintended consequences such as
weakening privacy and safety, or putting US companies at a disadvantage,
according to Pichai.

  Alphabet's strong earnings come after Apple, another pandemic-era winner,
reported record revenue last week as markets were jittery about tech's future
as well as geopolitical risks like the Ukraine crisis.

  However, regulators' scrutiny around the world is stacking up as one of the
most significant risks for the Silicon Valley giant.

  "Google has the biggest uphill battle in terms of antitrust issues among
all of the Big Tech companies," Third Bridge analyst Scott Kessler wrote.

   "Despite Apple's bigger size and Meta/Facebook's bad publicity, Google is
seen most at risk in terms of US antitrust law," he added.

  - Retail ads help push growth -

  Just last week, a group of top US justice officials accused Google in
lawsuits of tracking and profiting from users' location data, despite leading
consumers to think they could protect their privacy on the tech giant's
services.

   These suits are the latest legal threats against Google and other US Big
Tech giants, which have long faced probes and court cases but a lack of new
national laws that would regulate their businesses.

  The courts and legislatures are not moving fast. Two weeks ago, for
example, Google appealed a European court ruling that upheld a 2.4 billion-
euro fine imposed by Brussels in 2017 for anti-competitive practices in the
price comparison market.

  Alphabet's expectations-beating results offered positive signals even as
diminishing growth shadowed firms like lockdown lifestyle champ Netflix.

  Netflix lost tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization last
month -- but has rebounded -- after projecting growth of just 2.5 million
subscribers this quarter.

  Fortunes were quite different for Google, with Alphabet saying its board
had approved a 20-to-1 stock split that would make shares more affordable to
small investors.

  The firm predicts that its growth will continue in 2022, with digital
advertising expected to bring in more than $171 billion to Google this year,
or 30 percent of the global pie, just ahead of Facebook.

  "In the fourth quarter, retail was again by far the largest contributor to
year-on-year growth of our ads business," Alphabet CBO Philipp Schindler told
analysts.

  "Finance, entertainment and travel were also strong contributors," he
added.

  The stock was up nearly nine percent in after-market trades Tuesday at
2240GMT to $2,990.