Alphabet reports $3B in losses in Q4; names Eric Schmidt's replacement

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has announced the fourth quarter results for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. The California-based company reported a loss of $3 billion for the fourth quarter as it set aside $ 11 billion for taxes on its overseas profits being brought back to the United States.

"Our business is driving great growth, with 2017 revenues of $110.9 billion, up 23 percent year on year, and fourth quarter revenues of $32.3 billion, up 24 percent year on year," said Alphabet's chief financial officer Ruth Porat.

The Google segment accounted for $31.9 billion in revenue and delivered an operating profit of $8.8 billion. Excluding the tax provision -- following the lead of other multinationals taking advantage of a favorable rate to repatriate earnings -- Alphabet would have posted a profit of $6.8 billion. Google remained the key to the revenue and profit for the company. It has reorganized into new divisions for self-driving vehicles, life sciences and other "moonshot" projects.

Alphabet’s “other bets” category delivered revenue of $409 million, up from $262 million a year earlier. The loss from those projects narrowed to $916 million from $1.1 billion.

Apart from the earnings report, the company announced Eric Schmidt's replacement, who departed in December. Google has appointed John Hennessey, a former Stanford University president as a replacement for Schmidt. Hennessy has been a board member since 2004 and lead independent director since April 2007.

In 1984, Hennessy co-founded the semiconductor company Mips Computer Systems, which went public in 1989 and was eventually sold to computing company Silicon Graphics in 1992 for a little over $400 million.