Alphabet stock spikes on Q2 revenue blowout, YouTube record

Google's parent company Alphabet blew past Wall Street expectations on revenue during the first quarter, sending its stock up nearly 5% in after-hours trading.

Driving the news: The tech giant said its video platform YouTube brought in a record $7 billion for the quarter, up 84% year-over-year.

Why it matters: Alphabet's success can be attributed in part to the better-than-expected advertising market coming out of the pandemic.

• Social media companies like Snapchat and Twitter last week reported record revenue growth for the second quarter of 2021, an early indicator that internet giants are poised to benefit from the digital ad market boom.

Between the lines: Google also shared that its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, has surpassed 15 billion global daily views, up from 6.5 billion that it previously announced in March. 

By the numbers, via CNBC:

• Earnings per share (EPS): $27.26 vs $19.34 per share, according to Refinitiv estimates.
• Revenue: $61.88 billion vs $56.16 billion, according to Refinitiv estimates.
• YouTube advertising revenue: $7.00 billion vs $6.37 billion expected, according to StreetAccount estimates.
• Google Cloud revenue: $4.63 billion vs $4.40 billion expected, according to StreetAccount estimates.
• Traffic acquisition costs (TAC): $10.93 billion vs $9.74 billion expected, according to StreetAccount estimates.

Be smart: Google is facing increasing regulatory scrutiny around the world, particularly in Europe and the U.S. But as Axios' Scott Rosenberg notes, tech giants "are floating on a cushion of record profits in lakes of reserve cash, and all that money makes them just about unsinkable."