Sundar Pichai was pressed on Web3 in Google’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
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Google could be a blockchain player.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of the tech giant and its parent company Alphabet (ticker: GOOGL), acknowledged the power of Web3 and blockchain in the group’s quarterly earnings call Tuesday.
It was one of his first—if not the first—public comments on the technology.
Web3 describes an emerging vision for the internet based on blockchain, which is a decentralized, secure, and transparent technology underpinning cryptocurrency networks, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other digital asset applications.
“On Web3, we are definitely looking at blockchain,” Pichai said, according to a transcript of Alphabet’s earnings call compiled by FactSet, calling it “an interesting and powerful technology with broad applications.”
“As a company, we are looking at how we might contribute to the ecosystem and add value,” Pichai added. “One example, our Cloud team is looking at how they can support our customers’ needs in building, transacting, storing value and deploying new products on blockchain-based platforms.”
Alphabet’s fourth-quarter results were a blowout. The group—the third most valuable public company in the U.S. by market capitalization—posted earnings per share of $30.69 on sales of $75.3 billion, with revenue up 32% year-over-year. Expectations were for EPS of $27.68 on sales of $72.3 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.
The company noted that its cloud business grew strongly. Revenue in the division, which primarily offers cloud computing solutions for companies, rose 44% year-over-year to $5.54 billion.
When it comes to the growing business of cloud computing, Google is a key rival to other tech heavyweights like Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN).
“Despite cloud computing being a highly competitive sector, current demand will only proliferate and Alphabet will be there to capture this growth,” said Christopher Rossbach, the chief investment officer of asset manager J. Stern & Co.
“Companies are increasingly looking to move databases from normal static storage to the blockchain, which will create even more demand for cloud computing,” Rossbach added. “We think that Alphabet will be one of three winners, alongside Amazon and Microsoft , that will emerge from the battle for cloud supremacy.”
Alphabet stock was up 10% in the U.S. premarket Wednesday. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, appeared unmoved by Pichai’s comments, remaining near $38,500—a level it has traded around for days.
Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]
