Google's parent company Alphabet beats on earnings, brings in $27.77 billion in Q3

Google beat expectations on Q3 results, sending the stock popping after hours.
The company generated $27.77 billion in revenue, up 24% from a year ago.

Google's parent company Alphabet topped Wall Street's Q3 financial targets, as its mobile search advertising business and YouTube video site pushed revenue up 24% from the year before.

Shares of Alphabet were up as much 4% in after hours trading on Thursday, following the announcement.

Thursday afternoon was tech earnings mania with Amazon, Alphabet, Intel and Microsoft all reporting earnings. All of them beat expectations across the board.

Amazon boosted its revenue by 34% year-over-year
Intel

Alphabet executives pointed to strength in its online ad business across regions of the world during the third quarter, and highlighted new initiatives like Google's fledgling line up of hardware products and Google's cloud computing business.

"You're clearly entering an era where you're going to have different types of computing experiences," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said during the conference call with analysts. "So to do that and to stich it all together across, I think it's important that we thoughtfully put our opinion forward."

But Google executives also warned that payments to partner websites would continue to grow, as consumers increasingly access Google's services on mobile devices like smartphones.

Here are the results, versus analyst expectations from Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters:

Revenue:
EPS (GAAP):
Traffic acquisition costs
Cost-per-click on Google properties
Operating loss for Other Bets
Google's Other revenues
Headcount

Alpahbet executives said the biggest growth in headcount was in Google's cloud business, as the company bulks up on technical and sales roles.

The big story surrounding Google is the fake ads from Russian bots that ran across various Google platforms during the 2016 US election. Google has discovered less than $100,000 worth of ads so far. Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, will testify before Congress with representatives from Facebook and Twitter regarding Russian abuse on their platforms on November 1.

Despite the fake news problems and Russian ad abuse, Alphabet's stock has been performing well. It hit an all-time high of $1,016 last week, and the company was able to report a healthy earnings beat Thursday.