Alphabet (GOOGL) Q1 2026 earnings

Alphabet reported first-quarter earnings after the bell Wednesday, showing revenue that topped expectations boosted by its surging cloud business. Shares climbed following the report.

• Earnings per share: $5.11
• Revenue: $109.9 billion vs $107.2 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG

It is unclear if EPS was comparable to the $2.63 expected by analysts polled by LSEG.

Wall Street was also watching several other numbers in the report:

• Google Cloud: $20.02 billion vs. $18.05 billion estimated, according to StreetAccount
• YouTube advertising: $9.88 vs. $9.99 billion estimated, according to StreetAccount
• Traffic acquisition costs: $15.22 vs. $15.3 billion estimated, according to StreetAccount

The company beat Wall Street’s expectations for revenue, growing 20% increase from last year, marking the company’s highest rate of growth for any quarter since 2022.

Net income came in at $62.57 billion, up 81% compared to the year prior.

Alphabet stock has outperformed its Magnificent Seven peers this month, up 21%, and tech stocks are poised to wrap up their best month since April 2020, with the Nasdaq up 14% for the month as of Wednesday’s close.

Wall Street has been piling into the sector despite concerns that surging oil prices and supply chain disruptions from the war in Iran will lead to rising costs for AI infrastructure.

The four hyperscalers — Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft — all reported results on Wednesday, updating investors for the first time since the U.S. began combat operations in Iran in late February.

Google Cloud beat Wall Street’s expectations, recording 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 led by an increase in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) across enterprise AI Solutions and enterprise AI Infrastructure. The company says Google Cloud has a backlog of $460 billion.

CEO Sundar Pichai said Gemini Enterprise paid monthly active users grew 40% from the previous quarter.

Google’s advertising revenue came in at $77.25 billion, up 15% from the same time last year.

Other Bets, which includes Alphabet’s self-driving car company Waymo, brought in $411 million — down from the $450 million, the same time last year. During the quarter, Waymo surpass 500,000 fully autonomous rides a week, the company said Wednesday.

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