Alphabet Announces Its First-Ever Dividend

Google parent Alphabet will pay its first-ever dividend next week, the company announced after publishing quarterly financial results. The dividend will be 20 cents per share.

The tech giant also announced a $70 billion worth stock buyback program. These announcements were welcomed by the investors who sent the stock surging nearly 16% in the post-trading period on Thursday.

Alphabet beat expectations for the quarter in sales, profit, and advertising. Revenue was $80.54 billion for the quarter ended March 31, powered by rising demand for its cloud services.

During the earnings call, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Google's AI offerings are crucial to its core search results. "We are encouraged that we are seeing an increase in search usage among people who are using the AI overviews," he said.

advertising sales rose 13% in the quarter to $61.7 billion, as Google Cloud revenue grew 28%. Alphabet's capital expenditures were $12 billion, a 91% rise from the same period last year. CFO Ruth Porat said that she expects expenditures to be at that level or higher throughout the remainder of the year, as the company spends to build AI offerings.