Gemini tops one billion monthly active users as Google Cloud revenue rises 103%

Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to $30.709 billion in July–September, rising 103% year-over-year. In its October 28 third-quarter results, Alphabet attributed growth to enterprise AI infrastructure and solutions, core cloud services and a meaningful contribution from sales of its TPU computing systems.

The earnings slides also put Gemini app monthly active users above one billion, following 950 million disclosed on July 22. The figures cover several businesses: computing services consumed by enterprise customers, equipment sold to them and a consumer app. Their different scopes affect how readers interpret the growth.

In the preceding quarter, Google reported 82% year-over-year Cloud revenue growth and $514 billion in Cloud backlog. Its own model APIs were then processing approximately 22 billion tokens a minute. Those API figures describe developer and business usage, while the app figure counts monthly active users.

CEO Sundar Pichai now puts first-party model API throughput at nearly 32 billion tokens per minute, up 40% sequentially and more than fourfold annually. He also said AI Mode queries average three times the length of traditional searches, with one in five using voice, images or documents globally. These are company-reported usage measures.

Cloud consumption and equipment sales have different accounting

The quarterly filing includes consumption fees, subscriptions, Workspace and TPU system sales within Google Cloud. Consumption revenue follows customer use; subscriptions are recognized across the contract term. Hardware and software sales are generally recognized when control transfers, while installation, support and extended warranties follow service delivery.

TPUs are Google’s purpose-built machine-learning accelerators. Its technical documentation describes efficient matrix calculations for model training and inference. High-bandwidth memory accommodates larger models and batches, while groups of TPUs can scale workloads. The documentation identifies large, matrix-heavy models and extended training runs as suitable uses. It also lists high-precision arithmetic and frequently branching calculations among unsuitable workloads. These are design and workload guidelines, rather than a measured performance result for the systems sold during the quarter.

Cloud operating income reached $11.121 billion, compared with $3.594 billion a year earlier. Segment operating margin rose from 23.7% to 36.2%. Companywide cash purchases of property and equipment increased 114% to $51.355 billion, exceeding operating cash inflow of $42.290 billion. Quarterly free cash flow was consequently negative $9.065 billion.

Across Alphabet, revenue grew 25% to $127.577 billion and operating income rose 30% to $40.576 billion. Net income available to common stockholders was $26.170 billion, or $2.12 per diluted share. Common-stockholder income fell 25% from $34.979 billion a year earlier. Other income and expense was negative $8.221 billion. Segment earnings, companywide profit and cash remaining after equipment spending each measure a different scope of activity and costs.

At September 30, total revenue backlog was $567.7 billion, including $560.8 billion for Google Cloud. Alphabet expects to recognize just over 55% of the total within 24 months. Backlog includes future billings, and recognition depends on contract duration, delivery and customers’ service consumption. Cancelable contracts are excluded from that balance.