Alphabet to see advertising revenue decline this year but Facebook manages to grow

Rob Clapp

An overview of forecast advertising revenue growth for Alphabet and Facebook during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and into 2021.

Alphabet will record two consecutive financial quarters of advertising revenue decline as a result of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and future recession, according to forecasts from Pivotal Research.

Advertising revenue for the Google and YouTube parent company is expected to fall 8.9% in Q2 2020. This would be the first decline ever recorded and equal an absolute drop of $2.9bn from the previous year.

Advertising revenue will continue to struggle for the rest of 2020, dipping 2.1% in Q3 before recording single-digit growth of 3.2% in the usually lucrative fourth quarter.

This drop is likely to be...

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