Announces $70 Billion Share Buyback Plan
Stock Price Surges 4% in After-Hours Trading
Alphabet, Google's parent company, reported first-quarter results that exceeded market expectations, driven by strong advertising revenue.
On April 24 (local time), Google announced that its first-quarter revenue for this year reached $90.13 billion (approximately 129.03 trillion won), with earnings per share of $2.81 (about 4,022 won).
This revenue surpassed the Wall Street consensus estimate of $89.12 billion compiled by market research firm LSEG, and the earnings per share also exceeded the expected $2.01. Revenue increased by 12% compared to the same period last year, surpassing the Wall Street forecast of 10%. Net income rose to $34.54 billion, marking a 46% increase.
In particular, the stable growth of the advertising business, which accounts for about 75% of total revenue, offset the slowdown in the cloud segment. Advertising revenue increased by 8.5% year-on-year to $66.89 billion. While this growth fell short of the previous quarter's 10.6% increase, it still exceeded the market expectation of 7.7%.
Amid concerns about an economic downturn due to tariff policies by U.S. President Donald Trump, which have led companies to reconsider their advertising expenditures, the digital advertising market remained robust in the first quarter of this year.
Cloud segment revenue increased by 28% to $12.26 billion. This growth was slower than the previous quarter's 30.1% and fell short of the market expectation of $12.27 billion. However, the operating margin improved significantly to 17.8%, up from 9.4% last year.
In addition, Google announced a $70 billion share buyback plan.
Google's stock price, which had risen 2.38% during regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange that day, jumped more than 4% in after-hours trading following the earnings announcement.
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