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SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s corporate parent on Wednesday announced its first-ever quarter with more than $100 billion in revenue, a milestone that illustrates the unwavering power of its internet empire amid legal and competitive threats.

The news of Alphabet Inc.’s accelerating growth in revenue and profit comes on the heels of a court ruling in the U.S. Justice Department’s landmark monopoly case against Google’s dominant search engine that was widely seen as a mild rebuke that wouldn’t hobble the company.

Alphabet performed like a powerhouse during the July-September period, delivering a profit of nearly $35 billion, or $2.87 per share, a 33% increase from the same time last year. Revenue rose 16% from last year to $102.3 billion. Both figures easily exceeded the analysts’ projections that steer the stock market.

Investors celebrated the third-quarter numbers by driving up Alphabet’s stock price nearly 5% in Wednesday’s extended trading.

That’s on top of a 30% surge in Alphabet’s shares that has created nearly $770 billion in stockholder wealth since early September. That’s when U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta rejected a Justice Department proposal to break up Google to curb the abuses of a search engine that was declared an illegal monopoly last year.

Mehta’s cautious handling of Google’s search monopoly largely reflected his belief that rapid advances in artificial intelligence technology have already been spawning conversational “answer engines” from rising tech stars such as ChatGPT and Perplexity that are giving consumers more options.

ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI and Perplexity have released AI-powered web browsers to compete against Google’s industry-leading Chrome browser that the Justice Department had unsuccessfully tried to persuade Mehta to order to be sold.

But Google has been implanting more AI features into both its search engine and Chrome, as well as its other products, as part of its effort to protect its turf while also expanding into new technological frontiers. In a sign of the inroads those efforts are making, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai disclosed Wednesday that Google’s AI-powered Gemini app now has 650 million monthly users.

Like other major tech companies, Google has been bankrolling its AI ambitions with a spending spree that has raised worries about a potential bubble that will eventually burst. Alphabet now expects to budget $91 billion to $93 billion for capital expenditures this year, up from $85 billion in its previous quarterly report issued in July, with most of the money earmarked for the massive data centers needed to power AI.

Alphabet has the luxury of drawing upon a lucrative ad network that Google has spent a quarter century building. Google’s ad sales totaled $74.2 billion in the third quarter, a 13% increase from last year.

The AI craze has been a boon for Google’s Cloud division that oversees data centers for other companies, an endeavor that has turned into the fastest growing part of Alphabet. Google Cloud posted revenue of $15.2 billion in the past quarter, up 34% from last year.

Although Google appears to have fared relatively well in the legal attack on its search engine, it still faces a potentially damaging blow in another case brought by the Justice Department against the technology underlying its ad network.

After condemning parts of Google’s ad technology as an illegal monopoly earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema is considering ways to handcuff the company in the future. The Justice Department is seeking a court order to force Google to sell pieces of its ad network — an issue that Brinkema isn’t expected to rule on until early next year.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, displayed steady growth in its core advertising business and cloud computing division as it reported third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, beating Wall Street estimates as it reported its first quarter of $100bn in revenue.

The company thrilled Wall Street – shares rose in after-hours trading – even as it announced that it would spend billions more than previously predicted. Alphabet raised its capital expenditure guidance in financial filings, declaring it would spend between $91bn and $93bn in the upcoming year, nearly all of it on infrastructure like datacenters to support artificial intelligence products, which are becoming an integral part of the company’s business. That estimate is up from an original declaration of $75bn in February and a revised figure of $85bn announced in July.

The company reported total revenue of $102.35bn for the quarter, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $99.89bn, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Google Cloud remained one of Alphabet’s fastest-growing segments, benefiting from surging enterprise demand for AI-powered infrastructure and data analytics services. The unit posted revenue of $15.16bn, topping estimates of $14.72bn. The performance was likely boosted by burgeoning enterprise demand for its AI infrastructure.

The unit continues to close the gap with larger rivals Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, aided by strong take-up of Vertex AI and custom tensor processing units.

Competition in the broader AI and cloud market is intensifying, with rivals aggressively cutting prices and introducing new generative-AI capabilities.

Alphabet’s advertising unit, which brings is the vast majority of the company’s revenue, has been competing in a crowded field of rivals vying for more ad dollars as lower interest rates are expected to lift the economy.

However, analysts have pointed to cautious spending from advertisers in some sectors who are grappling with economic uncertainty due to pressures from tariff costs and a rapidly evolving global trading landscape.

Still, Wall Street expects the company to benefit from advertisers moving away from experimental ad platforms like Snapchat and others.

The results come just days after Microsoft and SoftBank Group-backed OpenAI unveiled its AI-powered Atlas browser, aimed at directly competing with Google’s core search engine and Chrome browser, the most popular in the world.

The launch represents one of the most significant challenges to Google’s search dominance in years and will be a key focus for investors listening for management’s response to the rising competitive threat to its most lucrative business.

CFO Commentary to Be Provided in Writing Ahead of Call

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NVIDIA will host a conference call on Wednesday, November 19, at 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET) to discuss its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, which ended October 26, 2025.

The call will be webcast live (in listen-only mode) on investor.nvidia.com. The company’s prepared remarks will be followed by a Q&A session, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors.

Ahead of the call, NVIDIA will provide written commentary on its third-quarter results from Colette Kress, the company’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. This material will be posted to investor.nvidia.com immediately after the company’s results are publicly announced at approximately 1:20 p.m. PT.

The webcast will be recorded and available for replay until the company’s conference call to discuss financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026.

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