Google Now Worth $2.15 Trillion

<p>Shares in Google parent company Alphabet surged 10&percnt; on Friday and broke the &dollar;2 trillion market cap level&period; The company is now worth &dollar;2&period;15 trillion after shares hit an all-time high following its first quarter earnings announcement&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Alphabet also announced it will pay a dividend for the first time ever&period; The company&&num;8217&semi;s Board of Directors approved a cash dividend of &dollar;0&period;20 per share that will be paid on June 17&comma; 2024&comma; to stockholders of record as of June 10&comma; 2024&comma; on each of the company’s Class A&comma; Class B&comma; and Class C shares&period; The company says it intends to pay quarterly cash dividends in the future&comma; subject to review and approval by the company’s Board of Directors in its sole discretion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company will also buy back up to &dollar;70 billion in Class A and C stock&comma; adding to the stock surge Friday&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Alphabet reported first quarter revenues of &dollar;80&period;5 billion&comma; a 15&percnt; increase from a year ago&period; Google and YouTube advertising accounted for &dollar;61&period;6 billion of total revenues&period; Net income was &dollar;23&period;6 billion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Sundar Pichai&comma; CEO of Alphabet&comma; said&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Our results in the first quarter reflect strong performance from Search&comma; YouTube and Cloud&period; We are well under way with our Gemini era and there’s great momentum across the company&period; Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure&comma; and our global product footprint&comma; position us well for the next wave of AI innovation&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ruth Porat&comma; President and Chief Investment Officer&semi; CFO said&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Our strong financial results for the first quarter reflect revenue strength across the company and ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base&period; We delivered revenues of &dollar;80&period;5 billion&comma; up 15&percnt; year-on-year&comma; and operating margin expansion&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;