Alphabet is expected to report its fourth quarter 2025 earnings after the market closes on Wednesday, 4 February 2026.
Here are consensus expectations from Tiger Trade for Alphabet's Q4 earnings:
Revenue: $111.4 billion, up 15.34% YoY
EPS: $2.63, up 23.65% YoY
Source: Tiger Trade App
What To Look For In The Q4 Report
1. Search Advertising Revenue (With AI Overview, Gemini Integration) Expected to Rise 13%
Alphabet's recent traction with Gemini over OpenAI provides a catalyst to help accelerate growth in the former's core Search business, where ad sales have so far remained insulated from any query-volume loss to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
At the forefront of the AI development cycle, Alphabet is realizing strong wins for Gemini AI as one of the top-ranked AI applications above pure-play developers like OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic Claude. From an enterprise adoption perspective, Gemini AI may be one of the leading models with enterprise-ready applications like Gemini Code Assist that can be deployed to potentially improve operations.
Google's release of Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and agentic offerings that span across its apps are likely to further aid ad targeting and personalization, adding a tailwind for YouTube ads growth. Apple's choice of Gemini for use on iOS should aid model engagement.
The digital advertisement market is estimated to expand by a CAGR of more than 13% from 2026 to 2035. The company is serving in high-growth markets, and therefore its growth momentum is likely to last in the long run.
2. Google Cloud Growth Seen Around 44%, Operating Margin to Remain Strong in Search & Cloud
Compared to peers like Microsoft & Amazon, Alphabet’s growth may more heavily balance cloud services and AI development as part of its broader business model. This may make Alphabet more dependent on the success of new AI model development as well as adoption of the applications, whereas peer hyperscalers are more geared towards facilitating AI development.
Fundamentally, Google Cloud growth and margin expansion are expected to be the biggest catalysts for Alphabet going into Q4 2025 earnings. Alphabet has been making substantial progress in improving Cloud margins in recent quarters, breaking double digits in Q2 2025 and surpassing 20% in Q3 2025. For Q4 2025, Google Cloud is expected to grow by 44% with a 775bps uplift in the segment operating margin.
Segment margin growth is also a key factor to lead Alphabet shares’ outperformance in 2025, where peer hyperscalers’ shares returned modest single-digit growth.
3. 2026 Consensus Capex $115 Billion Can Rise as AI Infrastructure Build-Out Continues
The last point of interest is the CapEx and FCF outlook, particularly for 2026 FY guidance on these two metrics. As mentioned above, peak spending would signal FCF inflection and a possible journey to sustainable margin growth.
With growth in Google Cloud will come increased capital investments to support demand. The growth in cloud services amongst the hyperscalers has been underpinned by significant capital spend for compute capacity, with the investment cycle nowhere near the end. Given that Cloud growth is dependent on capital deployed, Alphabet, as well as peer hyperscalers, may report a significant uplift in capital budgets for 2026.
The Google Cloud segment expects a boost from increased demand from AI inference workloads, where Gemini's API token usage has surpassed that of OpenAI. Commercialization of tensor processing units, coupled with the company's lead in token generation, would increase capex growth expectations for 2026.
Analysts' Opinions
Roth Capital raised the firm's price target on Alphabet to $365 from $310 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares ahead of the Q4 earnings report. The company's catalysts in the first half of 2026 include tensor processing unit chip partnerships, Waymo city launches, Gemini App user milestones, and likely Gemini 4.0 news, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Roth also sees "tentpole industry events" like FIFA World Cup, the Winter Olympics, and the U.S. midterm elections offsetting tougher compares in the second half of 2026. It expects the company to modestly beat consensus estimates in Q4.
KeyBanc raised its price target on Alphabet to $360.00 from $330.00, while maintaining an Overweight rating on the stock. The firm cited a favorable environment for Alphabet, noting several emerging core trends in artificial intelligence that benefit the company. KeyBanc identified compute capabilities, distribution networks, and proprietary data as critical factors for AI performance.
Stifel raised the firm's price target on Alphabet to $346 from $333 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares as part of the firm's digital ads Q4 preview. The firm prefers Alphabet into the print with what it sees as "solid fundamentals that are likely ahead of Street," the analyst tells investors. However, the wildcard is incremental releases from OpenAI that are likely to show well versus the latest Gemini, though the firm thinks "that's something to worry about after the print."
UBS analyst Stephen Ju raised the firm's price target on Alphabet to $345 from $306 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares. The Q4 earnings outlook for advertising-driven companies points to slimmer beats after a slow October tied to a government shutdown, followed by a rebound in November and December, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Among nine companies, five exceeded prior forecasts, two were in line, and two came in modestly below expectations, UBS says.
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