Google parent Alphabet revs up revenue, profit

San Francisco : Google parent Alphabet on Thursday reported strong gains in quarterly results, beating most market forecast despite rising costs for its "moonshot" efforts.

Alphabet reported a 29 percent jump in quarterly profit to $5.4 billion, while revenue jumped 22 percent compared with a year ago to $24.75 billion.

"Our excellent results represent a terrific start to 2017," chief financial officer Ruth Porat said.

"We clearly continue to benefit from our ongoing investments in product innovation and have great momentum in our new businesses across Alphabet."

The Google segment delivered the overwhelming majority of revenues for the company -- or $24.5 billion.

The so-called "other bets," which include smart home devices, self-driving cars and life sciences, took in $244 million in revenue but delivered an operating loss of $855 million, Alphabet said.

The stronger-than-expected results helped lift Alphabet shares more than four percent in after-hours trade on Wall Street.

The results did not appear to show a major impact of an ad boycott of Google's YouTube earlier this year after revelations that programmed ads were placed alongside videos showing hateful content.

Porat told a conference call that "YouTube revenues continued to grow at a significant rate driven primarily by video advertising." 

Overall ad revenues for Google rose 19 percent to $21.4 billion in the quarter.

Google has promised new efforts to match advertisers with appropriate content, using artificial intelligence, in response to complaints.

Sundar Pichai, chief of Google, cited "fantastic momentum" for a variety of products including its Google Assistant, the smart home device that competes with Amazon's Alexa-powered speakers.

Pichai said the device is one element in a strategy focusing on artificial intelligence, or machine learning.

"Advances in machine learning are helping us make many Google products better," he said.