Google earned more than US$ 3 billion from ad sales to China-based advertisers in 2018. That’s a steep increase of 60% year-on-year, The Information reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
China revenue is still a minor part of Google parent company Alphabet’s overall 2018 revenue of $136.8 billion. And, as we all know, Google’s core products are not even available in China. But the reason for the growing interest in Google’s ad products is that Chinese tech companies need to promote their products and services beyond their home market.
In 2018, Google’s plan to bring its search engine and other services back to China again, after quitting the market in 2010, was shattered by unexpected media exposure, as well as internal and external resistance.
Facebook, another tech giant that is still blocked in China, saw even more ad sales revenue in the country. Facebook raked in about US$ 5 billion in ad sales from China, which made up about 10% of the social media giant’s annual revenue.
