Google plans to cut its marketing budgets by as much as 50% for the second half of 2020, CNBC reports, citing internal emails from the company.
The big picture, via Axios' Ina Fried: Google is doing what most big tech companies are or will be doing soon — looking for budget cuts that can mitigate the coronavirus fallout, with marketing expenses likely to be on the chopping block.
Driving the news: The budget cuts follow a hiring slowdown that Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced to employees on Wednesday, CNET reports.
What they're saying: "As we outlined last week, we are re-evaluating the pace of our investment plans for the remainder of 2020 and will focus on a select number of important marketing efforts," a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement to CNBC on Thursday. "We continue to have a robust marketing budget, particularly in digital, in many business areas," a Google spokesperson told Axios in a statement.
- “We'll be slowing down the pace of hiring, while maintaining momentum in a small number of strategic areas, and onboarding the many people who've been hired but haven't started yet."
Go deeper: Apple, Google limit how coronavirus contact-tracing tech can be used
