Information technology Google parent company increases profit by a third despite EU fine
Google's parent company Alphabet has increased its quarterly profit by around a third despite a billion-dollar fine in the EU. The internet giant earned around 34.98 billion dollars from July to September, up from 26.3 billion dollars in 2024.
29.10.2025, 21:56
30.10.2025, 03:03
SDA
The EU Commission accused Google and Alphabet of competition violations in the advertising business and imposed a fine of 2.95 billion euros in September.
Alphabet increased its revenue by 16% year-on-year to just under 102.35 billion dollars, exceeding analysts' expectations. It was the first time that the Group broke the 100 billion dollar mark in a quarter.
Google's advertising business, including the video platform YouTube, remains the Group's most important source of revenue, growing by 12.6% year-on-year to 56.57 billion dollars.
AI search on the rise
The development of the advertising business is being monitored very closely. This is because Google is currently introducing more AI-generated summaries into its search engine, which are intended to answer users' queries directly. This could reduce the incentive to click on links next to the search results. However, this is how Google has traditionally earned its money. However, the search engine has to change - because it has new competition from AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, which many users ask their questions to.
CEO Sundar Pichai said that the AI summaries resulted in significantly more search queries. This is because users discovered that Google could answer more of their questions. The effect is more noticeable among young users, said Pichai. The so-called AI mode in the search engine, in which artificial intelligence answers queries, now has more than 75 million users every day.
Huge investments in AI
Like some of its rivals, Alphabet is investing huge sums in the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure. For this year, the company is planning capital investments of 91 to 93 billion dollars - previously the target was 85 billion dollars. Alphabet also announced a "significant increase" for 2026, initially without specifying a concrete order of magnitude.
More resources for Waymo robotaxis
The turnover of the Alphabet division, which includes future projects such as Waymo's robotaxis and Wing drones, fell from 388 to 344 million dollars within a year. The division also made an operating loss of a good 1.4 billion dollars - 28 percent more than a year ago. Waymo is to be given more resources. The Alphabet company is regarded as a leader in robotaxis - while Elon Musk is trying to roll up the still small market with cheaper vehicles from the electric car manufacturer Tesla, which he manages.
