After fifteen years, Google’s cloud division is finally in the black. A boost for Google and the parent company Alphabet.

Alphabet has filed its first quarterly report for fiscal 2023. The entire group had sales of $69.8 billion and positive net income of $15 billion. The results for Google Cloud, including GCP and Google Workspace, are the most notable. Google’s cloud division generated sales of $7.5 billion and brought the balance sheet to a net profit of $191 million.

An important milestone for Google Cloud, which is allowed to write the numbers in the accounts in black ink for the first time. Google’s cloud business has always been in the red since the company started releasing separate numbers on it in 2020. Google has had to invest heavily to compete with AWS and Microsoft Azure, and says it will finally start reaping the benefits from this year.

The numbers need to be put into perspective, as Google Cloud’s earnings numbers are still peanuts compared to AWS, for which cloud has been a cash cow for years. AWS posted a whopping $80 billion in revenue and $22.8 billion in net income in fiscal 2022, though the cloud giant also admits it’s feeling the effects of the economic slowdown. Microsoft makes around seventeen billion dollars with Azure.

Boost for Google

One swallow doesn’t make a summer, although CEO Sundar Pichai is optimistic about the future of Google Cloud. The cloud division has won major orders in recent years and the professional portfolio has recently been restructured. Price increases for Workspace subscriptions should also boost sales. A definitive turnaround may have begun for Google Cloud.

That would definitely be a boost for the entire company. The financial results show that the search and advertising businesses, the main sources of income, are hitting a ceiling. As a result, overall revenue growth was still 3 percent, compared to more than 20 percent in 2022. Add to that the fact that Google needs to invest heavily in AI in the coming years to keep up with Microsoft, and any new revenue stream isn’t a luxury.