The current annual results of international companies are impressive. The most spectacular are the numbers of Google’s mother Alphabet. In the fourth quarter alone, a profit of $20.64 billion remained from sales of $75.33 billion. But European companies also showed better results.
- Alphabet: The Google parent company, based in Mountain View in Silicon Valley, almost doubled its profits to $76 billion (67.5 billion euros) last year. The world’s largest provider of online advertising is benefiting from the trend towards working from home and online shopping. Last year, Google earned 61 billion dollars with advertising played out via the search engine or the video platform YouTube. The high market share of 30 percent of the world market means that the regulators in the USA and EU are becoming increasingly vigilant, the dominant position could be exploited to distort competition. Google is fighting back and is currently challenging a 2017 antitrust fine of 2.4 billion euros. On the stock market, the strong numbers and the announcement of a 20:1 stock split led to a nearly eight percent jump to $2968.70.
- Novartis: The Swiss pharmaceutical company increased its sales by six percent to $51.6 billion, but fell short of analysts’ expectations. Adjusted operating income grew eight percent to $16.6 billion. However, because Novartis sold its stake in Roche, the bottom line is a jump in profits to $24 billion – which corresponds to a tripling. In November, the pharmaceutical company surprisingly announced that it wanted to give up its 33 percent stake. Roche bought back 33 percent for $20.7 billion. In the fiscal year that has just begun, the group intends to increase its growth rate slightly. CEO Vas Narasimhan referred to six therapies designed to reduce dependency on high-selling drugs whose patent protection is about to expire. The stock lost on the stock exchange. The reason for this is the uncertain future of the Sandoz subsidiary. The generics manufacturer is struggling with tough competition – and the effects of the corona pandemic. Because of the measures taken against the virus, there are fewer colds, and sales of patent-free cough and cold medicines remain low. The Basel pharmaceutical giant can also report no breakthrough in the development of a corona drug.
- Ferrari: The Italian carmaker closed last year with a net profit of 833 million euros. That means an increase of 37 percent compared to 2020. At 4.27 billion euros, sales are almost a quarter higher than the previous year and also ten percent higher than the pre-Corona year 2019. 11,155 vehicles are sold, which is also a fifth more than in 2020 – and ten percent more than in 2019.
- Calzedonia: The Italian underwear and hosiery manufacturer achieved a sales increase of 29 percent compared to 2020 with 2.5 billion euros in the previous year. There is also a small increase compared to 2019. Operating earnings before taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) amounted to 760 million euros – after 531 million. Calzedonia – which owns Intimissimi, Tezenis and Falconeri – has nearly 330 stores.
- Starbucks: The world’s largest coffee chain has not announced its annual figures, but its quarterly figures. Despite charges from Omikron, the company earned 816 million dollars (724 million euros), 31 percent better than in the previous year. Sales rose 19 percent to $8.1 billion.
Source: Nachrichten
