Google rises on big earnings beat

Google parent Alphabet beat analysts’ estimates, posting first-quarter earnings per share of $2.81, versus a FactSet consensus estimate of $2.01, and revenue of $90.2 billion, versus the Street’s $89.17 billion projection.

The stock recently jumped 4.4% after-hours. The company also allotted another $70 billion for stock buybacks, as it has done in years past around this time.

For Q1 2025, Alphabet’s revenue grew 12% year over year to $90.2 billion.

Let’s break down the results for Alphabet’s many divisions:

• 📺 YouTube’s Q1 ad revenue grew 10% to $8.9 billion.

• ☁️ Google Cloud revenue was up 28% to $12.3 billion.

• 🔎 Google’s search business brought in $50.7 billion, up 10%.

• 💰 Google advertising revenue was $66.9 billion, a 8.5% increase year over year.

Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said the company was “pleased with our strong Q1 results, which reflect healthy growth and momentum across the business.”

Google, currently facing headwinds from its lost monopoly battles, which could potentially force the breakup of the company, and problems from tariffs, which indirectly affect its advertising business, is considered a harbinger of how other megacap tech stocks might perform this quarter.

In the news release, Pichai said Google’s search “saw continued strong growth, boosted by the engagement we’re seeing with features like AI Overviews, which now has 1.5 billion users per month.”

Those comments come as the company is facing pressure from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a much more popular AI competitor. Google has said it plans to spend $75 billion in capex this year, mostly to bolster its AI efforts.