Alphabet

By Emily Bary Google parent puts ‘doomsday AI search share-loss fears’ to bed with latest earnings report Alphabet Inc.’s stock could see its second-best single-day performance in history on Friday, following an earnings report that drew effusive praise from analysts. Simply put, the company was “perfect,” in the view of Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik. The Google parent company faced an interesting setup headed into the report. On one hand, its shares were near all-time highs. But at the same time, Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) has spent the past year and a half drawing investor doubts over factors like its artificial-intelligence positioning and the future of its core search business in a world where AI queries come to dominate, wrote Shmulik, who has a market-perform rating on the stock. See also: Alphabet’s stock surges on first-ever cash dividend, $70 billion stock buyback, strong results He noted that the company’s results were buoyed […]

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shares were climbing on Friday after the company reported its first-quarter results amid a lot of hype around the AI revolution. The results came amid an exciting earnings season. Here are some key analyst takeaways from the release. Goldman Sachs On Alphabet Analyst Eric Sheridan reiterated a Buy rating while raising the price target from $185 to $195. Alphabet’s first-quarter results reflected higher-than-expected revenues from Search and YouTube, “as Google’s broader ad ecosystem benefited from a strong end demand environment and continued to demonstrate product innovation with Performance Max and YT Shorts,” Sheridan wrote in a note. “AI innovation continues to build scale in the advertising business (conversions, Performance Max and search generative experience),” he added. “Alphabet struck a multi-sided theme of investing for the long-term (highlighted by Q1 capex levels that would be sustained throughout 2024), upside in both Services and Cloud operating income margins as prior period

Alphabet’s (GOOG) Google properties are expected to grow by around $20 billion in 2024 as Search monetization steps up and YouTube recovers, UBS said Friday in a note to clients. The Search franchise is on track to accelerate and add $16 billion in revenue, while YouTube is set to recover and grow $5 billion in revenue this year, UBS said. “Overall, our revenue estimates march higher as we factor in quick acceleration in YouTube (where YouTube TV is gaining budgets from linear TV and seeing better YouTube Shorts monetization) and take off some of the conservatism in Search,” UBS said. UBS estimates 2024 Google Search revenue of $190.5 billion, versus the previous estimate of $187.2 billion, and YouTube Ads revenue of $36.6 billion, up from $35.3 billion. UBS raised Alphabet’s price target to $173 from $166 and maintained its neutral rating. Alphabet shares rose 9.4% in recent Friday trading.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) reported quarterly earnings of $1.89 per share which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.51 by 25.17 percent. The company reported quarterly sales of $80.539 billion which beat the analystAlphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) reported quarterly earnings of $1.89 per share which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.51 by 25.17 percent. The company reported quarterly sales of $80.539 billion which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $78.594 billion by 2.47 percent. This is a 15.41 percent increase over sales of $69.787 billion the same period last year.

Alphabet (GOOG) reported Q1 earnings late Thursday of $1.89 per diluted share, up from $1.17 a year earlier. Analysts polled by Capital IQ expected $1.51. Revenue in the quarter ended March 31 rose to $80.5 billion from $69.8 billion a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Capital IQ expected $78.7 billion. Shares of the company surged 12% in after-hours activity.

By Jon Swartz Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s stock initially soared 14% in after-hours trading Thursday following huge spikes in revenue and net income that trounced analysts’ predictions – as well as its first-ever cash dividend of 20 cents per share. Alphabet’s board also authorized the repurchase of up to $70 billion in shares. The search-engine powerhouse reported a jump in first-quarter sales, chiefly through advertising, for total revenue of $80.54 billion, up 15% from $69.8 billion a year ago. Sales minus total acquisition costs (TAC) came in at $67.59 billion, compared with $58.07 billion a year ago. Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG) reported first-quarter net income of $23.66 billion, or $1.89 a share, compared with net income of $15.05 billion, or $1.17 a share, in the year-ago quarter. “Our results in the first quarter reflect strong performance from Search, YouTube and Cloud. We are well under way with our Gemini era and

Alphabet’s (GOOG, GOOGL) Q1 revenue is likely to beat Street view, with upside driven by search stability, its YouTube platform, and the benefit from the leap year, BofA Securities said in a Thursday note. The company is set to release its Q1 results on April 25 and BofA Securities said positive factors for this period include search upside, the integration of search generative experience into its search function, the impact of shorts on YouTube traffic and revenue growth, and higher margins from cloud strength. BofA Securities also flagged potential risks to the company’s results such as growing expenditures for new generative artificial intelligence investments, the impact of the Digital Markets Act, and slowing search growth. BofA Securities maintained its buy rating on Alphabet with a price target of $173.

CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows: We lift our 12-month target price to $175 from $166, on near long-term historical P/E of 22.2x our 2025 EPS estimate, which we raise to $7.88 from $7.54. We up our 2024 EPS to $6.88 from $6.77. Ahead of Q1 results set to be released on 4/25, we see upside to EPS/revenue as we expect strong results from both GOOGL’s Search (+11%) and YouTube (+10%) businesses. We think cloud revenue will grow 26% and see a mid-to-high 20s level being sustained for all of 2024 as we see incremental opportunities tied to AI monetization. We expect GOOGL to unveil a new buyback of at least $70B (same level as the last two years) and see the potential for a dividend initiation following one by Meta Platforms earlier

Needham analyst Laura Martin initiated coverage on Reddit Inc (NYSE:RDDT) with a Buy rating and a price target of $55. Reddit emphasizes the growing value of its extensive library of human conversations for training large language models (LLMs) and brand “social listening,” as per Martin. The platform’s 18-year collection of daily updated conversations across 1.2 million topics and 7.5 million comments, according to the analyst, positions Reddit as a prime resource for understanding diverse human dialogues and popular expressions. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google’s $200 million deal with Reddit for data access underscores the potential for data licensing revenue, with OpenAI and several Amazon.Com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) Amazon Web Services LLMs expected to follow suit due to the indispensable nature of Reddit’s data for LLM development, Martin said. She stated that Reddit’s unique data offers significant pricing power for GenAI applications by facilitating a nuanced understanding of language evolution and current terminologies. Unlike alternative sources, Reddit’s real-time human conversations

CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows: GOOGL held its Google Cloud Next 2024 event in Las Vegas where it made a host of AI hardware/software announcements. Most notably, GOOGL unveiled its first Arm-based custom silicon CPU (Axion) and latest LLM model update (Gemini 1.5 Pro) that offers new enhanced AI capabilities (e.g., native audio). AI features coming to Google Workspace include Google Vids (an AI video creation tool), Gemini additions to Gmail, and a host of productivity tools that it looks to monetize (e.g., AI note taking/meeting summaries, translation, new security package) at an add-on cost of $10/month per user. GOOGL also announced its Vertex AI Agent Builder, a tool for Enterprises to help build AI agents, and confirmed Blackwell GPUs will be available in 2025. Overall, we come away impressed with GOOGL’s

Alphabet’s (GOOG, GOOGL) Google Cloud said in a blog post that it will invest $1 billion in digital connectivity to Japan to support Google’s Japan Digitization Initiative and improve digital connectivity between the US, Japan and other Pacific Island territories. The investment will fund the expansion of Google’s Pacific Connect initiative, which covers Australia and French Polynesia, and the addition of two new subsea cables to establish new fiber-optic routes between the US and Japan, the company said. Google Cloud said it will collaborate with partners such as KDDI, ARTERIA, Citadel Pacific, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on the planned subsea cables. No timeline was disclosed for the initiative.

BofA Securities analyst Justin Post reiterated a Buy rating on Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), with a price forecast of $173. Google kicked off its annual Cloud Next event with a keynote announcing new custom AI chips (Axion & TPUs), platform-wide Gemini integration, strategic partnerships, and customer traction. According to the analyst, Google’s hardware advances, Gemini progress, and AI-driven app demos should help sentiment on AI capabilities. Apart from this, Google’s hardware advances, Gemini progress, and AI-driven app demos should help sentiment on AI capabilities, the analyst adds. Post writes that the Cloud AI cycle could be underappreciated for the industry and a positive driver for Google stock given the growing scale & potential contributor to higher overall revenue growth. In addition, increasing cloud margins aiding EPS and growing stock valuation contribution on ’26 revenues can be positive drivers for Google stock. The analyst specifically highlighted the new custom Axion AI chip (CPUs) in