Company: GOOGL
Filing Date: 2025-04-25
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001652044-25-000043
Chunk: 56

Company: Alphabet Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-25
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part I, Item 1
Chunk 56
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 of our costs and expenses, including those associated with the operation of our technical infrastructure as well as components of our operating expenses, are generally less variable in nature and may not correlate to changes in revenue. Additionally, fluctuations in employee compensation expenses may not directly correlate with changes in headcount due to factors such as annual SBC awards that generally vest over four years.

Cost of Revenues

Cost of revenues is comprised of TAC and other costs of revenues.

•TAC includes: 

◦amounts paid to our distribution partners who make available our search access points and services. Our distribution partners include browser providers, mobile carriers, original equipment manufacturers, and software developers; and

◦amounts paid to Google Network partners primarily for ads displayed on their properties.

•Other cost of revenues primarily includes:

◦content acquisition costs, which are payments to content providers from whom we license video and other content for distribution, primarily related to YouTube (we pay fees to these content providers based on revenues generated, subscriber counts, or a flat fee);

◦depreciation expense related to our technical infrastructure;

◦employee compensation expenses related to our technical infrastructure and other operations such as content review and customer and product support;

◦inventory and other costs related to the devices we sell; and

◦other technical infrastructure operations costs, including network capacity, energy, and equipment costs.

TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Network properties are significantly higher than TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Search & other properties, because most of the advertiser revenues from ads served on Google Network properties are paid as TAC to our Google Network partners.

Operating Expenses

Operating expenses are generally incurred during our normal course of business, which we categorize as either R&D, sales and marketing, or general and administrative.

The main components of our R&D expenses are:

•depreciation;

•employee compensation expenses for engineering and technical employees responsible for R&D related to our existing and new products and services; and

•third-party services fees primarily relating to consulting and outsourced services in support of our engineering and product development efforts.

The main components of our sales and marketing expenses are:

•employee compensation expenses for employees engaged in sales and marketing, sales support, and certain customer service functions; and

•spend relating to our advertising and promotional activities in support of our products and services.

The main components of our general and administrative expenses are:

•employee compensation expenses for employees in finance, human resources, information technology,