Google reported better than expected growth for the March quarter as the giant digital platform noted no headwinds, yet, from the trade war.
Chief business officer Philipp Schindler said it was “too early to comment” on the June quarter.
Analysts expect that Google, while not directly affected by tariffs, could feel the squeeze from clients who pull back on ad spend because of the trade war.
Revenue at Alphabet, Google’s parent, was up 12% to $US90.2 billion in the March quarter . Services revenue increased 10% to $77.3 billion, reflecting strong performance across Google Search & other, Google subscriptions, platforms, and devices and YouTube ads.
“We’re pleased with our strong Q1 results, which reflect healthy growth and momentum across the business,” said CEO Sundar Pichai.
“Underpinning this growth is our unique full stack approach to AI. This quarter was super exciting as we rolled out Gemini 2.5, our most intelligent AI model, which is achieving breakthroughs in performance and is an extraordinary foundation for our future innovation.
“Search saw continued strong growth, boosted by the engagement we’re seeing with features like AI Overviews, which now has 1.5 billion users per month.
“Driven by YouTube and Google One, we surpassed 270 million paid subscriptions. And Cloud grew rapidly with significant demand for our solutions.”
Emarketer principal analyst Yory Wurmser said Google registered strong numbers last quarter before a possible storm in the current June quarter when tariffs could dampen growth in advertising spend.
“Advertisers continued to spend strongly on search and YouTube,” Wurmser said.
“The solid results for search also indicate that Google has so far managed the transition to AI Overviews well, although it still faces long-term threats from generative search competitors like ChatGPT and potentially many others pending the outcome of the remedies hearings in the search antitrust trial.
“Google Network weighed down overall ad revenues, but this comes as no surprise. Q1 is the 11th straight quarter of negative growth.
“Cloud’s growth indicates that Google AI product mix continues to thrive despite heightened competition, but tariffs could alter their plans for capex."
Google March quarter 2025:
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