Alphabet jumps as Q1 earnings and revenue blow past expectations
The search giant also boosted its capex forecast for the year and said it expects 2027 capex to be “significantly” higher than 2026.
Alphabet reported earnings Wednesday that sharply beat analysts’ expectations, powered by big revenue gains in its cloud division.
The search giant posted earnings per share of $5.11, versus the FactSet analyst consensus estimate of $2.63. It raked in $109.9 billion in revenue, compared with Wall Street’s $106.98 billion expectation.
Shares rose 6.3% after-hours in the wake of the report.
The company’s capital expenditure continued to soar, jumping to $35.7 billion during the quarter, compared with $17.2 billion a year earlier and $27.9 billion in the fourth quarter.
Alphabet also boosted its forecast for annual capex on its earnings call, saying it plans to spend $180 billion to $190 billion this year, up from its previous forecast of $175 billion to $185 billion. It also said it expects its 2027 capex to increase “significantly” from 2026.
Alphabet’s profit was lifted by blockbuster gains on some of its equity investments — it said the value of its nonmarketable equity securities helped power a net gain of $37.7 billion. The company’s private investments include stakes in Anthropic and SpaceX.
Alphabet also announced a 5% increase to its dividend.
Let’s break down the results for Alphabet’s many divisions:
📺 YouTube’s ad revenue rose 11% to $9.9 billion.
☁️ Google Cloud revenue for the fourth quarter was $20 billion, up a whopping 63% year over year.
🔎 Google’s Search business brought in $60.4 billion, up 19%.
💰 Google advertising revenue was $77.3 billion, a 16% increase from last year.
