The chart above displays the quarterly sales and marketing expenses of Alphabet Inc (parent company of Google) from 2020 to 2023. Alphabet has continued to increase its spending on sales and marketing each year. In fiscal 2022, the company spent total $26.6 billion on sales and marketing. The company spent $6.533 billion on sales and marketing in the first quarter of 2023 which was $700 million higher than the same quarter in the prior year.
Quarterly Sales and marketing expenses of Alphabet (Google) 2014-2023
Amounts are in millions.
FY 2023
Sales & Marketing expenses (millions)
Q1
$6,533
FY 2022
Sales & Marketing Expenses (millions)
Q1
$5,825
Q2
$6,630
Q3
$6,929
Q4
$7,183
Total
$26,567
In fiscal 2022, the sales and marketing expenses of Alphabet increased to $26.7 billion compared to $22.9 billion in the prior year. The company spent higher on sales and marketing in the first three quarters of fiscal 2022 compared to the same quarters of the prior year.
FY 2021
Sales and marketing expenses ($ millions)
Q1
$4,516
Q2
$5,276
Q3
$5,516
Q4
$7,604
Total
$22,912
According to Alphabet Inc’s 2021 annual report, “Sales and marketing expenses increased $5.0 billion from 2020 to 2021, primarily driven by an increase in advertising and promotional activities of $2.5 billion and an increase in compensation expenses of $2.2 billion. The increase in advertising and promotional activities was driven by both increased spending in the current period and a reduction in spending in 2020 due to COVID-19. The increase in compensation expenses was largely due to a 14% increase in headcount.”
FY 2020
Sales and marketing expenses ($ millions)
Q1
$4,500
Q2
$3,901
Q3
$4,231
Q4
$5,314
Total
$17,946
Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, spent 9.8% of its net revenues on sales and marketing in 2020, compared to 11.4% in the last year. It sales and marketing expenses were down to $17.95 billion in 2020 compared to $18.5 billion in 2019.
FY 2019
Sales and marketing expenses (millions)
Q1
$3,905
Q2
$4,212
Q3
$4,609
Q4
$5,738
Total
$18,464
The sales and marketing expenses of Alphabet Inc (the parent company of Google) grew to $18.5 billion in fy 2019 compared to $16.3 billion in fy 2018. The company incurred the highest sales and marketing expenses in the fourth quarter of the year when they rose to $5.74 billion compared to $5.1 billion for the same period last year.
FY 2018
Sales and Marketing expenses (Millions)
Q1
$3,604
Q2
$3,780
Q3
$3,849
Q4
$5,100
FY 2017
Sales and marketing expenses (millions)
Q1
$2,644
Q2
$2,897
Q3
$3,042
Q4
$4,310
FY 2016
Sales & marketing expenses (millions)
Q1
$2,387
Q2
$2,415
Q3
$2,565
Q4
$3,118
FY 2015
Sales & Marketing expenses (Millions)
Q1
$2,065
Q2
$2,080
Q3
$2,223
Q4
$2,679
FY 2014
Sales & Marketing expenses (millions)
Q1
$1,729
Q2
$1,941
Q3
$2,084
Q4
$2,377
About Alphabet:
Alphabet is the parent company of Google. It has its headquarters located at Mountain View California, United States.
Apart from its google search engine and advertising products, Alphabet offers a vast range of products including Cloud services and other services like Chrome Browser and Google Maps.
The CEO of Alphabet is Sundar Pichai. Alphabet’s main source of revenue if digital advertising followed by cloud services. It also owns YouTube and some other businesses that are collectively called Other Bets.