While parent company Alphabet continues to decline to offer specific details about the revenue totals or growth rates for its Google Cloud business, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat this week disclosed that Google Cloud has had some number of $100-million-plus deals and is one of the fastest-growing businesses within Alphabet.
“We’re also seeing a really nice uptick in the number of deals that are greater than $100 million,” Porat said on Alphabet’s earnings call.
Now, there’s absolutely no way to determine if that means the number of those megadeals increased from zero to one, or from one to two, or from two to three, or even from, say, 15 to 22—any of those possibilities represent “a really nice uptick.”
But, while the leaders at Alphabet are choosing to remain rather circumspect about the financial details involving their cloud business, they did offer a few nuggets about the business during the earnings call in addition to the vague reference to an increase in the number of $100-million deals and Google Cloud’s role as one of Alphabet’s fastest growing businesses.
Among those nuggets:
- “Google Cloud is a fast-growing, multibillion-dollar business that supports major ‘Global 5,000’ companies in every important vertical with a robust enterprise organization,” CEO Sundar Pichai said during his prepared remarks.
Sundar Pichai (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) - In 2018, Google Cloud “more than doubled” its number of platform deals valued at more than $1 million, and also more than doubled the number of multiyear contracts signed.
- The company’s G Suite SaaS business topped 5 million users for its cloud collaboration and productivity tools in 2018.
- Big customer wins for Google Cloud in 2018 included “two of the top financial firms in the U.S.”; retailers Bed Bath & Beyond, DSW and Ulta Beauty; and the UK Telegraph media company.
- Regarding new Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, Pichai is “thrilled to have him here as our new Cloud leader.”
- The company plans to “invest in and scale our go-to-market both in terms of direct sales and our channel partnerships.”
- On the subject of “multi-cloud” solutions, Pichai said the “ability to run cloud services across clouds and on-premises turns out to be very important for global multinational companies like HSBC.”
So while Google Cloud revenue and overall financial results continue to be a bit of enigma enveloped in fog, the company’s clearly becoming a force in the Cloud Wars—and the arrival of the extremely well-qualified Kurian as its CEO will surely only accelerate that momentum.
And with its annual Google Cloud Next customer conference slated for April 9-11 in San Francisco, it’s clear that in about two months, the world’s going to learn a great deal more about exactly where Kurian intends to take Google Cloud in 2019 and beyond.
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