Tech giant and Google parent Alphabet published its business results for the recently completed quarter on Wednesday evening.
Alphabet has presented investors with the balance sheet for the first quarter of the 2026 financial year. This shows earnings per share of $5.11, after $2.81 in the same period last year. Experts had previously assumed an average EPS of $2.63. The bottom line is that quarterly profits rose to $62.6 billion from $34.5 billion a year earlier.
In addition, the Google parent achieved sales of $109.896 billion in the reporting period. This compares to revenue of $90.234 billion last year. Expectations were somewhat exceeded, as analysts had on average forecast quarterly sales of $106.96 billion.
The bottom line is that Alphabet’s profits rose by just over 80 percent to just under 63 billion euros. The disproportionate increase in surplus is due to the valuation of investments not traded on the stock exchange. Among other things, Alphabet has been involved in SpaceX since 2015. Elon Musk’s AI and space company is set for a record IPO.
According to a Bloomberg report, Musk is aiming for a valuation of more than $2 trillion. According to reports, Alphabet’s stake would then be worth more than $100 billion. The company once invested less than a billion dollars. Alphabet does not provide any information on individual items in its quarterly balance sheet, but put the value of all investments not traded on the stock market at $107 billion. At the end of 2025 this was still 69 billion dollars.
Google and Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai reported a record number of search queries in the past quarter. In recent years there has been a lot of speculation about whether new rivals that use artificial intelligence to provide answers to queries rather than links could make life difficult for Google’s leading search engine.
But the Internet giant itself integrated AI functions into its search engine – and claims that it is being used more as a result. The stock market has long since dispelled doubts about Alphabet’s AI prospects. The price of Google shares has more than doubled in the past twelve months.
With a market value of just over $4.2 trillion, Alphabet is currently the second most valuable company in the world after NVIDIA (5.1 trillion). The numbers were received positively. The quarterly figures were received positively. The Alphabet share price ultimately rose by 9.96 percent to $384.80 on the NASDAQ, reaching a new record high.
Like other tech giants, Alphabet is investing tens of billions of dollars into expanding its artificial intelligence infrastructure. The range for planned capital investments this year has been increased from $175 billion to $185 billion to $180 billion to $190 billion. Spending is expected to continue to rise in 2027, said CFO Anat Ashkenazi in a conference call with analysts.
Google’s advertising revenue – the group’s most important moneymaker – increased by 15.5 percent year-on-year to around $77 billion in the last quarter. The cloud business jumped by a good 63 percent to $20 billion.
RBC raises target for Alphabet shares
Canadian bank RBC raised its price target for Alphabet A shares from $400 to $425 and left the rating at “Outperform.” The first quarter was rock solid, wrote Brad Erickson on Thursday about the report. The Internet giant is “in the driver’s seat” when it comes to consumer applications of artificial intelligence.
Carolin Ludwig, Bettina Schneider, Evelyn Schmal, finanzen.net editorial team with material from dpa-AFX
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