Agencies
Google’s corporate parent Alphabet Inc. on Thursday released a quarterly report showing it’s still reaping double-digit revenue gains from its digital advertising empire while sowing potentially lucrative new ground in artificial intelligence.
The results for the first three months of the year provided the latest evidence that Google has regained its momentum after an unprecedented downturn in 2022 coming out of the pandemic.
Alphabet punctuated its renewed vigor by also disclosing plans to begin paying shareholders a quarterly dividend for the first time since since Google went public 20 years ago.
It’s something that two older technology powerhouses, Microsoft and Apple, have been doing for years. Alphabet’s quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share will be paid June 17.
Investing.com analyst Thomas Monteiro praised the decision to pay a dividend as “a breath of fresh air for the tech market” that should also make investors more likely to support the increased amounts that Google will likely need to spend on developing AI products that could take years to pay off.In the January-March period, Alphabet’s revenue rose 15% from the same time last year to $80.54 billion, which surpassed the projections of analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.
It marked the fourth consecutive quarter of accelerating year-over-year revenue growth for the Mountain View, California, company.
Alphabet earned $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, a 57% increase from last year’s comparable quarter. The earnings per share also eclipsed the analyst estimates that steer investors.
“We are incredibly well set up, given the innovation path we are on,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts during a Thursday conference call.
The company’s stock price soared by nearly 13% in Thursday’s extended trading after the news came out.
