Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is about to exceed a capitalization of…

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, reported 15% higher revenue in the first fiscal quarter of 2024 and announced its first-ever dividend of 20 cents a share, along with a share buyback worth 70 billion dollars, supported by an increase in revenues in its main business lines.

Revenue rose to $80.5 billion from $69.8 billion a year ago, beating analysts’ expectations of $79 billion, according to a filing on Thursday, the FT said. Earnings per share reached $1.89, up from $1.17 last year and beating the average estimate of $1.53.

Shares rose as much as 13% in after-hours trading, positioning Alphabet to add more than $250 billion to its market capitalization and surpass $2 billion, where it would join peers in the “Seven magnificent” Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia. Microsoft also reported better-than-expected earnings on Thursday.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the quarter represented a “strong performance from Search, YouTube and Cloud” and that Google was “well-aligned with our Gemini era,” referring to its language model great generative artificial intelligence.

“Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure and our global product footprint position us well for the next wave of AI innovation,” he added.

The first-quarter dividend is worth nearly $2.5 billion, and the board said it “intends to pay quarterly cash dividends going forward,” a symbolic policy shift for the tech giant, which until now has only used share buybacks to return money to investors. Since the beginning of 2024, Alphabet’s shares are up 24%. The company now has a capitalization of 1,950 billion dollars.