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Alphabet continues to remain a dominant force in online advertising
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has reported 22% rise in fourth quarter sales, fuelled by an increase in online advertising.
Revenues rose to $39.2bn (£30bn) for the final three months of the year.
However, shares in Alphabet fell by more than 3% in after-hours trading as its capital expenditure jumped to $7bn.
The company said it had invested in data centres, hired more engineers and spent money acquiring content for services such as YouTube.
George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “While the core business is still growing impressively, the significant spending shows growth isn’t quite as capital light as had been hoped.”
Over the year, capital expenditure rose to $25.1bn from $13.1bn in 2017.
Alphabet’s chief financial officer Ruth Porat said that capital expenditure would “moderate quite significantly” this year.
The company reported a rise in fourth quarter profit to $8.9bn, reversing from a loss in 2017 due to a one-time tax charge.
For the full year, the firm reported profit of $30.7bn, up from $12.66bn in 2017.
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