Weaker Brazil, Argentina currencies weigh on Google’s results

Google’s Q4 revenue growth in Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada was hampered by FX effects, with the greenback strengthening relative to the Argentine peso and the Brazilian real, holding company Alphabet reported in its latest earnings results.

Alphabet divides its global operations into United States, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), APAC (Asia-Pacific) and Other Americas.

In the last quarter of 2024, the Other Americas unit delivered US$6.30bn in constant currency revenues, for 11% growth as reported. It was affected by US$565mn of FX fluctuations – the most across all geographies. 

Overall, Other Americas accounted for 6% of the group’s total net revenues in 2024, flat from 2023.

Meanwhile, the US accounted for 49% of Google’s revenues in 2024, increasing its share from 2023 as EMEA and APAC both lost ground.

Investments

At the end of 2024, Google opened its first cloud region in Mexico, adding to its existing regions in Santiago in Chile and São Paulo in Brazil.

The year was also marked by the start of construction of its US$850mn Teros datacenter in Uruguay's Canelones department.

In the company’s Q4 earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai said Google broke ground on 11 new cloud regions and datacenter campuses last year, while announcing plans for seven new subsea cable projects.

Although not a company project, Google announced in 2024 its entry, as investor and tenant, into the Chilean government-promoted Humboldt submarine cable.

Announced prior to 2024 but due to be activated this year, Google's Firmina submarine cable will connect the US, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

Datacenter spending

Pichai and other company executives were questioned about datacenter and digital infrastructure spending following China's DeepSeek announcement.

“We look at every investment we make to ensure that we're doing it in the most cost-efficient way to optimize our datacenters. As you know, our strategy is mostly to rely on our own self-design and build datacenters,” said CFO Anat Ashkenazi.

Pichai claimed that Google's sites are among the world's most efficient.

“Google datacenters deliver nearly four times more computing power per unit of electricity compared to just five years ago. These efficiencies, coupled with the scalability, cost and performance we offer, are why organizations increasingly choose Google Cloud's platform," the CEO said.

According to Pichai, Google Cloud customers consume today more than eight times the computing capacity for training and inferencing compared to 18 months ago.

As for capex, Pichai announced plans to invest approximately US$75bn in 2025, with up to US$18bn in the first quarter.

The bulk will go towards infrastructure, which includes servers and datacenters.