Alphabet Revenue Jumps 25% but Earnings Miss Sends Shares Lower

Google's parent posted $127.6 billion in third-quarter revenue, led by cloud growth, but profit fell and the stock dropped about 8% after the report.

Google company sign on Charleston Road in Mountain View, California
Photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Facts

  • Alphabet earnings for the third quarter of 2026 were released Wednesday, October 28.
  • Revenue rose about 25% to $127.6 billion, up from $102.3 billion a year earlier. That was roughly in line with analysts’ consensus of about $127.9 billion.
  • Operating income was $40.58 billion, and operating margin rose to 31.8% from 30.5%.
  • Net income fell to $26.17 billion from $34.9 billion a year earlier.
  • Earnings per share were $2.12, well below the consensus estimate of $3.01. StockStory attributed the shortfall partly to an $8.7 billion loss on equity securities, compared with a $10.7 billion gain a year earlier.
  • Google Cloud revenue rose to $30.71 billion from $15.16 billion a year earlier.
  • YouTube advertising revenue was $11.2 billion, slightly below the roughly $11.4 billion analysts expected.
  • Search and other revenue was $63.4 billion, below a FactSet consensus of $65 billion.
  • Capital spending more than doubled from a year earlier, and free cash flow margin turned negative, at about -7.1%.
  • Alphabet shares fell about 8% to roughly $299.54 following the report.

Source Read 9to5Google’s summary of Alphabet’s results here.

Image <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mountain_View_%28CA%2C_USA%29%2C_Charleston_Road%2C_Google-Schild_–2022–_2896.jpg” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Mountain View (CA, USA), Charleston Road, Google-Schild — 2022 — 2896 by Dietmar Rabich, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.