Quarterly revenues rise by 21 per cent year-on-year.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, has announced a 21 per cent jump in quarterly revenues year-on-year to $26bn, but marked a fall in profits owing to a European Union-issued fine against Google.

The US company’s operating income (or operating profit) for the second quarter of 2016 was nearly $6bn, while over the same period this year it made just over $4bn.

The dent in profits is the result of a $2.7bn anti-trust fine issued against Google last month by the EU for demoting rivals in online search advertising, a ruling the company contests.

Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s chief financial officer, said the company was delivering “strong growth with great underlying momentum, while continuing to make focused investments in new revenue streams”.