Alphabet (GOOGL) Q1 2026 earnings

Alphabet reported in the first quarter earning After the bell on Wednesday, it showed revenue above expectations due to a growing cloud business. After the report, shares started to rise.

• Earnings per share: $5.11
• Revenues: 109.9 billion dollars etc. Analysts participating in the LSEG survey expect $107.2 billion

It’s unclear whether EPS is comparable to the $2.63 expected by analysts surveyed by LSEG.

Wall Street was also watching several other figures from the report:

• Google Cloud: $20.02 billion etc. Estimated $18.05 billion, according to StreetAccount
• YouTube advertising: $9.88 billion versus an estimated $9.99 billion, according to StreetAccount
• Traffic acquisition costs: $15.3 billion instead of the estimated $15.22 billion, according to StreetAccount

The company beat Wall Street’s expectations for revenue, growing 20% ​​year-over-year, the highest growth rate in any quarter since 2022.

“Our enterprise AI solutions became our primary growth driver for cloud for the first time in the first quarter,” CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts on the earnings call.

In his statement, Pichai said that Gemini Enterprise’s paid monthly active users increased by 40% compared to the previous quarter.

The company also updated its 2026 capital spending forecast range, from $180 billion to $190 billion, up from the previous estimate of $175 billion to $185 billion. Alphabet announced in December that it would acquire Intersect, a data center company, for $4.75 billion in cash and debt assumption.

Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi also said the company expects 2027 capital expenditures to “increase significantly” compared to 2026.

Alphabet reported capital expenditures of $35.7 billion in the quarter. This includes real estate, servers, data centers and other infrastructure. Alphabet is pouring money into AI infrastructure to capitalize on growing demand.

“We are computationally constrained in the short term,” Pichai said on the earnings call. “If we could meet demand, our cloud revenue would be higher.”

Alphabet shares have outperformed their “Magnificent Seven” peers this month, up 21%, and tech stocks are poised for their best month since April 2020; The Nasdaq was up 14% for the month as of Wednesday’s close.

Wall Street is flocking to the sector despite concerns that rising oil prices and supply chain disruptions from the Iran war will lead to increased AI infrastructure costs. Four hyperscalers—Alphabet, Amazon, Meta And Microsoft – Full results were released Wednesday, the first updated to investors since the United States began combat operations in Iran in late February.

Alphabet’s net income in the first quarter of 2026 was $62.57 billion, or $5.11 per share, up 81% from the previous year. A year ago, net income was $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share.

Google Cloud beat Wall Street expectations, posting a 63% increase in revenue from a year ago. Google’s Cloud unit houses most of the company’s AI services and products.

The company said the growth was driven by an increase in Google Cloud Platform, or GCP, across enterprise AI Solutions and enterprise AI Infrastructure. Google Cloud has a backlog of $460 billion, the company said.

Search had a strong quarter as AI experiences increased usage, with queries hitting an all-time high with 19% revenue growth.

Google’s advertising revenue reached $77.25 billion, an increase of 15.5% compared to the same period last year.

YouTube ads reported $9.88 billion in revenue for the quarter, meeting Wall Street expectations. Business Director Philipp Schindler said YouTube subscriptions are now growing faster than YouTube ads.

Other Bets, which includes Alphabet’s self-driving car company Waymo, generated $411 million in revenue, up from $450 million in the same quarter last year. During the quarter, Waymo surpassed 500,000 fully autonomous rides per week, the company said Wednesday.

Waymo announced in February that it had raised $16 billion in a new round led by outside investors, valuing the company at $126 billion. Waymo recently said it’s ready to bring its driverless vehicles to Orlando, Florida, as well as Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, Texas. During the quarter, the company began fully autonomous operations in Nashville, Tennessee, ahead of a planned commercial launch. Lyft later this year.

WRISTWATCH: AWS and Google Cloud should see strong acceleration