In a first for the company, Alphabet declared a dividend of 20 pence per share last Thursday, a move to return capital in a period where the parent company of Google is heavily investing in data centres, striving to keep pace with competitors in the sector of generative AI. Following this announcement, stock values saw an almost 13% surge in post-close trading.
Alphabet also confirmed it had given the green light for the buyback of a further $70 billion (around €65 billion) worth of its Class A and Class C shares. The company managed to exceed the estimates set by Wall Street for revenue for the first quarter, largely driven by a growth in demand for its cloud services due to a rise in the embrace of artificial intelligence and consistent expenditure on advertising.
According to LSEG data, the revenue for the quarter which concluded on March 31st was $80.54 billion, or about €75.05 billion, surpassing the expected $78.59 billion. Google Cloud saw a 28% revenue growth in the first quarter, facilitated by the popularity of generative AI tools that are dependent on cloud services to provide the technology to their clients.
It’s worth noting that Google’s cloud services have become increasingly appealing for venture-capital financed start-ups who are working on generative AI technologies, due to competitive pricing and smooth integration with other tools, as previously stated by investors and experts.