Alphabet announced its first dividend of $0.20 per share on Thursday, with Google’s parent company returning cash to shareholders at a time when it has spent billions of dollars on data centers to catch up to its competitors in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
The company’s shares rose nearly 13% in aftermarket trading.
Alphabet also said it had authorized the repurchase of an additional $70 billion of the company’s Class A and Class C shares.
The company also beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter revenue, driven by growing demand for its cloud services, growing adoption of AI technology and steady advertising spending.
According to data from LSEG, Alphabet’s revenue was $80.54 billion in the quarter ended March 31, versus estimates of $78.59 billion.
Google Cloud revenue, in turn, rose 28% in the period, driven by a boom in generative AI tools that rely on cloud services to deliver technology to customers.
According to investors and experts, Google’s cloud services are attractive for startups developing generative artificial intelligence technologies given their price and ease of integration with other tools.
Source: Terra
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