Google publishes Q1 2020 report: Search, YouTube and app downloads boom during the pandemic

As we are entering the second quarter of 2020 for many companies, a lot of tech giants are publishing their financial reports of the previous quarter. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the consequential decrease in customer demand, the smartphone industry appears to be struggling quite a lot and many companies are reporting losses. Google appears to have taken a hit as well.

Engadget reports that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has just announced its financial results for Q1 2020. Google CEO Sundar Pichai noted that the advertising performance suffered quite badly in March, after two strong months.

However, some parts of Google’s business were actually improving amidst the pandemic. In particular, usage of Google Search spiked and the coronavirus-related search activity was reportedly four times bigger than the peak of the Super Bowl search activity. YouTube also experienced growth, even though Google’s CEO did not mention any specific numbers, but that’s quite understandable given the fact that people stuck at home during lockdown are probably likely to look for entertainment on YouTube and other video-streaming platforms.

Google’s CEO also noted that people were spending significantly more time in mobile apps and downloads of apps from Google Play Store in March increased by 30% in comparison to those in February. However, there was a decline in the number of new device activations for Google Play services, due to the decline in consumer demand for new smartphones.

Overall, the company increased its revenue by 13% since last year and it therefore amounts to $41.2 billion, based on the increased use of Google Search, YouTube and Google’s Cloud services. Unfortunately, Google is reportedly unable to foresee what happens in the next quarter of 2020 and it’s expected to be a difficult one, given the fact that the pandemic is affecting the advertising business, which is considered Google’s biggest source of revenue.