Google Tops Q1 Estimates, Raises Dividend 5% and Authorizes $70 Billion Buyback
Tech giant Alphabet, Google’s parent company, smashed Wall Street expectations in its Q1 2025 results. The company reported $90.23 billion in revenue, up 12% year-over-year, easily beating analyst projections of $89.1 billion. Not too shabby for a company that’s been around since dial-up internet was a thing.
Net income reached a whopping $34.54 billion, with earnings per share hitting $2.81—absolutely demolishing the expected $2.01 per share. Investors clearly loved what they saw. Alphabet’s Class A shares jumped over 4% in after-hours trading, adding about $75 billion to the company’s market value. That’s billion with a B, folks.
Alphabet crushed earnings expectations, sending shares skyward and adding $75B to its already astronomical market value.
Google’s bread and butter—advertising—grew 8.5% to $66.89 billion, making up roughly three-quarters of total revenue. Search & Other revenue climbed 10% to $50.7 billion. Meanwhile, Google Cloud is killing it, with revenue surging 28% to $12.3 billion. Cloud computing: it’s where the money is these days.
The company’s AI initiatives are paying off big time. Their AI Overviews feature now reaches 1.5 billion users monthly. They also rolled out Gemini 2.5, their latest AI model that supposedly beats everything else on the market. We’ll see about that.
Subscriptions are booming too. Their paid user base topped 270 million, driven mainly by YouTube and Google One. YouTube Music and Premium achieved a milestone with over 125 million subscribers globally, including trials. People will pay for content after all. Who knew?
In a move that screams “we’re swimming in cash,” Alphabet announced a 5% increase to its quarterly dividend, now $0.25 per share. They’re also authorizing a massive $70 billion share repurchase program. The substantial share buyback program signals strong corporate confidence and exceeds initial market expectations. To support their aggressive AI expansion, the company plans to invest 75 billion dollars in capital expenditures throughout 2025. Nothing says corporate confidence quite like buying back your own stock.
CEO Sundar Pichai credited the stellar results to momentum across Search, Cloud, and AI-powered products. The company is betting big on what they call a “full stack approach” to AI for future growth.
Despite the impressive quarterly numbers, Alphabet’s stock was down about 16% year-to-date before this report. Tech stocks, am I right? Always on a rollercoaster.
The market’s enthusiastic reaction suggests investors believe Google’s growth trajectory remains strong. With continued investments in AI and cloud services, plus generous shareholder returns, Alphabet seems determined to stay at the top of the tech food chain. For now, at least. However, the company still faces significant regulatory challenges from ongoing antitrust lawsuits claiming monopolistic practices in search and advertising markets.
