Alphabet Q3 Profit Rises

(RTTNews) - Alphabet Inc., (GOOG, GOOGL), the parent company of Google, Thursday reported an increase in profit for the third quarter, driven mostly by growth of mobile search revenue as well strong performance of YouTube and Programmatic Advertising.

The company also announced plans to buy back nearly $5.1 billion in Class C stock in the fourth quarter.

Alphabet's third-quarter profit rose to $3.98 billion or $5.73 per share from $2.74 billion or $3.98 per share last year.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter rose to $5.10 billion or $7.35 per share from $4.30 billion or $6.25 per share last year. On average, 40 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $7.21 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenues for the quarter rose 13 percent to $18.68 billion from $16.52 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $18.53 billion last year.

On August 10, Google announced its plans to create a new public holding company, Alphabet, and a new operating structure. On October 2, 2015, we announced the implementation of the holding company reorganization, in which Alphabet became the successor issuer to Google.

"Our Q3 results show the strength of Google's business, particularly in mobile search. With six products now having more than 1 billion users globally, we're excited about the opportunities ahead of Google, and across Alphabet," said Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google.

Google said aggregate paid clicks increased 23 percent year-over-year, while aggregate cost-per-click fell 11 percent year-over-year.

GOOG closed Thursday's trading at $651.79, up $9.18 or 1.43%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $71.21 or 10.93% in the after-hours trade.