Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street expectations, supported by continued momentum in its cloud computing business, even as investor concerns around artificial intelligence spending weighed on the stock.
According to results released late Tuesday, Google posted stronger-than-expected financial performance for the quarter, with cloud services emerging as a key growth driver. Revenue from Google Cloud continued to rise at a solid pace, reflecting sustained enterprise demand for data storage, computing power, and AI-related workloads.
Despite the earnings beat, Google shares fell in post-results trading as investors focused on broader concerns about rising costs linked to artificial intelligence development and infrastructure. Market participants remain cautious about the pace of AI investment across big tech and the pressure it could place on margins in the near term.
Google’s advertising business, which remains its largest revenue source, delivered steady performance during the quarter, benefiting from resilient digital ad spending. However, analysts noted that cloud computing stood out as one of the company’s most consistent areas of expansion, helping to diversify revenue beyond advertising.
Management highlighted continued investment in AI capabilities across products and services, positioning cloud infrastructure as a central platform for deploying advanced AI tools to enterprise customers. While these investments are expected to support long-term growth, they have also raised questions among investors about capital expenditure levels and returns.
Overall, the quarterly results underscored Google’s ability to deliver earnings growth amid a rapidly evolving technology landscape, with cloud computing playing an increasingly important role in the company’s financial outlook.
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