Alphabet Inc.’s earnings Thursday after the bell contained something of a surprising detail: Its Google cloud unit is banking $1 billion a quarter in sales.
Though that’s a small portion of the company’s overall $32.32 billion in revenue, it’s a fast-growing chunk. And it’s the first time in years executives have broken out cloud specifically. Usually, cloud is grouped into “Google Other” with the company’s hardware and Play Store sales, which logged sales of $4.69 billion in the fourth quarter — including the cloud unit — an increase from $3.4 billion in the year-earlier period.
