Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, attends the inauguration of a new hub in France dedicated to the artificial intelligence sector, at the Google France headquarters in Paris, France, on Feb. 15, 2024.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Alphabet beat on the top and bottom lines in its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, and said it expects to significantly increase spending on artificial intelligence in 2026.
The stock rose slightly in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: $2.82 vs. $2.63 estimated
- Revenue: $113.83 billion vs. $111.43 billion estimated
Wall Street was also watching several other numbers in the report:
- Google Cloud: $17.66 billion vs. $16.18 billion, according to StreetAccount
- YouTube advertising: $11.38 billion vs. $11.84 billion, according to StreetAccount
- Traffic acquisition costs: $16.59 billion vs. $16.20 billion, according to StreetAccount
Alphabet said it expects 2026 capital expenditures to be in the range of $175 billion to $185 billion — nearly double its 2025 spend. The company said in October that it expected “a significant increase” to capex in 2026.
The company saw revenue increase almost 18% year over year. Net income came in at $34.46 billion, up almost 30% compared to the year prior.
Advertising revenue came in at $82.28 billion, up 13.5% from a year ago.
Google Cloud beat Wall Street’s expectations, recording a nearly 48% increase in revenue from a year ago. Google’s Cloud unit houses most of the company’s AI services and products.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a call with investors that its Gemini AI app now has more than 750 million monthly active users — up from 650 million monthly active users last quarter.
“As we scale, we are getting dramatically more efficient,” Pichai said. “We were able to lower Gemini serving unit costs by 78% over 2025 through model optimizations, efficiency and utilization improvements.”
Revenue for YouTube ads increased almost 9% to $11.38 billion, but it fell short of analysts’ expectations of $11.84 billion.
Other Bets, which includes the company’s life sciences unit Verily and self-driving car unit Waymo, reported revenue of $370 million during the quarter, down 7.5% from a year ago. Alphabet reported Other Bets’ loss of $3.61 billion, a year-over-year increase of more than 200%.
Waymo took a $2.1 billion employee compensation charge for the quarter, as it raised a new funding round at a $16 billion valuation.
The self-driving wing of Alphabet ended 2025 having served 15 million trips in five major U.S. markets, including Austin, Texas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area. In January, Waymo began operating its service in Miami.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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