ALBAWABA - After delivering strong quarterly results that exceeded sales and profit projections with the announcement of a cash dividend of $0.20 per share, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw its market capitalization exceed $2 trillion on Friday.
Currently ranked as the fourth most valuable public firm in the world, Google is now up against Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, which stands at a market value of over $3 trillion, to secure the position of the most valuable publicly traded company.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said in a statement “Our results in the first quarter reflect strong performance from Search, YouTube and Cloud,” further adding “"Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure, and our global product footprint, position us well for the next wave of AI innovation.”
Investors were also fulfilled with the internet search giant approving up to an extra $70 billion in stock repurchases. Google's primary revenue stream, ad income, was also boosted by 13% to $61.66 billion.
While Google’s AI products have had developing troubles as the company earlier had to halt its picture generator in response to complaints that it was overly sensitive, it is still doubling down on AI, saying in an earlier statement that it will be establishing Axion, a central processing unit, to help with the training of more sophisticated AI models.
Google officials stressed throughout Thursday's results call, according to Yahoo Finance, that the firm is dedicated to making investments that will support the creation of new models and that it has the resources to lead the transition in the tech industry towards an AI-centric future.
