In Its Race To Beat AWS And Azure, Google Cloud Lost $5.6 Billion In 2020

For the first time, Alphabet broke out Google Cloud’s operating revenue, which showed the unit generated $13 billion in revenue for the 2020 fiscal year. This represented 47% growth year-over-year.

However, on that revenue, Google Cloud lost $5.61 billion for the year.

For Q4 2020, Google Cloud generated $3.83 billion in revenue. This beat analyst expectations of $3.81 billion, according to StreetAccount. The division lost $1.24 billion in Q4 2020.

Alphabet indicated that Google Cloud generated $8.91 billion in revenue in 2019, on losses of $4.64 billion.

The move comes as no surprise to many in the cloud industry, as they have seen Google become more aggressive in growing its cloud business. According to Q3 2020 data from Synergy Research Group, Google Cloud commanded a 9% market share in global public cloud computing, a paltry figure when compared to Amazon Web Services’ 33% and 18%.

AWS is also dominating Google in terms of revenue, with Amazon’s cloud computing business generating profits of roughly $13 billion in 2020.

But Google Cloud signed high-profile clients in 2020 and continues to grow its business, under the leadership of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, a former Oracle president. On Monday, Ford signed a deal with Google to provide cloud computing services in a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In recent years, Google Cloud has re-organized its business model to become more of a direct competitor to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure and has indicated it will continue to beef up support for its cloud business.

During Alphabet’s earnings call, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat indicated the company would continue hiring in sales and technical roles. Overall, Google grew its workforce in 2020, adding roughly 16,000 employees. Pichai also indicated his support for making “disciplined” investments to grow scalability of Google Cloud.