Google parent company Alphabet has reported significantly higher profits in the past quarter compared to the corresponding period in 2024, on the heels of a surge in demand for its cloud services, driven by the rapid development of new artificial intelligence apps.
Google’s well-known search service also saw continued growth.
Alphabet’s total revenue increased by 12% year-on-year, reaching $90.2 billion, while net profit jumped by 46% to $34.5 billion. Google’s cloud division saw the most substantial profitability increase, with its operating result more than doubling from $900 million in the first quarter of last year to $2.2 billion this year.
Google offers the power of its servers to start-ups developing new AI applications and is also advancing its own AI model, Gemini, to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Earlier this year, CEO Sundar Pichai announced a substantial increase in investment in AI. Investors and analysts are watching closely to see if the capital expenditures of $75 billion will pay off, especially as competitor Microsoft withdraws from several data centre projects.
Revenue and profit growth in the first three months of 2025 surpassed Wall Street’s expectations.
Google’s share price rose by about 4% in after-hours trading, boosted by the continued growth of its traditional services, such as the search engine and video platform YouTube.
