Google seems to be making money in everything it touches but to experience any loss any almost be unheard of. That is exactly what is going on in Malaysia.
A Sorry State of Affairs
Let’s make a few things clear.
- The global revenue for Google in 2019 was at nearly $135 billion.
- In 2020’s Q1, net income for Google Advertising is close to $7 billion.
One would have expected this success to be experienced by Google anywhere. But it is not! In Malaysia, Google reported a loss of RM2 million for 2018. In 2017, the numbers were worse which was 4 times more losses. Much of this is believed to be for taxation.
The reality is that Google has been operating in Malaysia for 12 years now.
If that is not enough, there has been more saddening news where
Google-owned Waze recently announced the closing of its operations in Singapore. This was due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic which drove the company to lay off about 5% of its workforce worldwide.
Naturally, lesser people were traveling on the roads, leading to lesser active users on Waze. Google took over Waze for slightly more than $1billion in 2013 and the COVID-19 has now prompted the Israeli-origin company to go back to the drawing board and re-strategize.
