Alphabet Q2 2026 Earnings: YouTube’s 13% Ad Revenue Growth Paces Results

YouTube ad revenue increased 13% in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, helping to pace parent Alphabet‘s financial performance.

Total revenue rose 24% in the quarter to hit $119.8 billion, with Cloud revenue jumping 82%, as earnings per share nearly quadrupled to $9.11. Both top- and bottom-line metrics beat Wall Street expectations.

YouTube pulled in $11.055 billion in ad revenue, showing the double-digit growth that has eluded its traditional media rivals in recent years. Along with its deep well of creator content, YouTube is increasingly looking to cross over into traditional entertainment, landing rights to the Academy Awards and NFL football games. It has also seen a boost from the 2023 acquisition of NFL Sunday Ticket rights.

In the company’s earnings release, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai flagged YouTube’s popularity as a way for people to keep current. “Month over month, people turn to YouTube for major world events, with over 1.7 billion unique viewers watching World Cup-related videos during the FIFA World Cup,” he said.

Execs said they were boosting capital expenditures for 2026 to between $195 billion and $205 billion, up from the prior target of $180 billion to $190 billion. Shares in Alphabet slumped 4% in after-hours trading on the updated forecast, which prompted concerns about misalignment between spending and returns. A lot of investors have pulled back on major AI stakeholders amid concerns about reckless spending, but companies say they are “capacity constrained,” a theme that surfaced on Wednesday’s Alphabet earnings call with analysts.

Debate about the stocks of Alphabet and the other “magnificent seven” tech giants (Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Microsoft) preceded the earnings report. Some Wall Streeters fret about a recent divergence between the “mag seven” and semiconductor shares, given that chipmaker stocks have sold off recently despite their key role in the AI boom.

Google, initially a laggard in AI, has moved the head of the sector over the last few quarters, though it also faces questions about strategic plans for Gemini and other tools.