$GOOGL 🔥 Alphabet stock rises on strong financial growth and quarterly beat:

Alphabet stock (GOOG) (GOOGL) posted a solid gain in after-hours trading after it easily topped expectations in a first-quarter earnings report heavily watched by investors looking for direction from the Magnificent 7 stocks in a volatile market.
As always in recent quarters, the key question for Alphabet investors is how the staggering spending on artificial intelligence is flowing through to tangible financial gains.
Total revenues in the first quarter rose 22% (19% in constant currency) to $109.9B, clearing analyst consensus for $107B and marking its 11th straight quarter of double-digit growth.
Meanwhile, net income jumped 81% to $62.6B (primarily due to a net unrealized gain on nonmarketable equity securities that more than tripled vs. a year ago, to $36.9B).
Operating income rose 30% to $39.7B, with an operating margin that ticked up to 36% from a year-ago 34%.
As has been typical, Cloud growth outshined other segments (with revenues up 63% and operating income tripling to $6.6B).
Alphabet also announced a 5% increase to its quarterly dividend, to $0.22 per share.
It's a “terrific start” to the year, CEO Sundar Pichai said.
"Our AI investments and full-stack approach are lighting up every part of the business," he said in initial reaction. "Search had a strong quarter with AI experiences driving usage, queries at an all-time high, and 19% revenue growth. Google Cloud revenues grew 63% with backlog nearly doubling quarter on quarter to over $460 billion. This was our strongest quarter ever for our consumer AI plans, driven by the Gemini App."
Segment results
The strong revenue growth was paced by more strong gains in Google Cloud, though its biggest source of revenue, Search, grew 19%.
Revenue by segment: Google Search & other, $60.4B (up 19.1%); YouTube ads, $9.88B (up 10.7%); Google Network, $6.97B (down 3.9%); Google subscriptions, platforms, and devices, $12.38B (up 19.3%); Google Cloud, $20B (up 63.4%); Other Bets, $411M (down 8.7%).
Operating income by segment: Google Services, $40.59B (up 24.2%); Google Cloud, $6.6B (up 203%); Other Bets, -$2.1B (vs. year-ago -$1.23B); Alphabet-level activities, -$5.4B (vs. year-ago -$3B).
Capital spending and cash flow
Discussion of the capital spending outlook is still ahead on the conference call. Alphabet has said capital expenditures could reach to $185B billion this year.
For the first quarter, capital spending more than doubled year-over-year to $35.67B—slightly less than analyst expectations compiled by Bloomberg, for $36.4B.
Those analysts expect Q2 capex to hit $42.5B.
Net cash provided by operations rose 27% to $45.8B. But amid property-equipment spending that more than doubled to $35.7B, free cash flow fell 47% to $10.1B.
Trailing-12-months free cash flow was down 14%, to $64.4B.
Conference call to come at 4:30 p.m. ET.