Alphabet (Class C) (GOOG)

Communication Services · $3.52T market cap · SEC CIK 0001652044

Next reports on Feb 2, 2027, after the close, with analysts expecting $3.25 in earnings per share.

The case for GOOG

• Revenue up 22.2% on the year.
• Cheap for its growth: 14.9× earnings, where 23% a year of growth would justify about 43×.
• Earns 43% back on shareholder equity.
• Generated $73.3B of free cash flow in FY2025, 18% of revenue.
• 50% of revenue drops through to net profit.
• Earnings per share up 91.9%.

The case against

• The price trend is weak (27/100): +3.3% over a year, −19.4% over three months.
• Price/sales of 7.5× is higher than 89% of Communication Services companies.

What the score is made of

Each factor is half a curve over reported figures and half a rank among the other Communication Services companies (momentum is judged against fixed thresholds only), and the five are blended by weight. The score is where that blend places it in the S&P 500. It describes the last filing and the current price. It is not a forecast.

• Each factor except momentum is half fixed thresholds, half rank among the 19 Communication Services companies.

The financials

The financials, five years deep

Pulled from Alphabet (Class C)'s XBRL filings on SEC EDGAR. Italic rows are worked out from the others.

What Alphabet (Class C) says it does

Overview As our founders Larry and Sergey wrote in the original founders' letter, "Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one." That unconventional spirit has been a driving force throughout our history, inspiring us to tackle big problems and invest in moonshots. It led us to be a pioneer in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and, since 2016, be an AI-first company. We continue this work under the leadership of Alphabet and Google CEO, Sundar Pichai. Alphabet is a collection of businesses — the largest of which is Google. We report Google in two segments, Google Services and Google Cloud, and all non-Google businesses collectively as Other Bets. Supporting these businesses, we have centralized certain AI-related research and development focused on advanced research in AI and developing the frontier models that serve our businesses, which is reported in Alphabet-level activities. Alphabet's…

Risk factors GOOG lists in its 10-K

• Our increasing investment in new businesses, products, services, and technologies is inherently risky, and could divert management attention and harm our business, financial condition, and operating results
• Our revenue growth rate could decline over time, and we may experience downward pressure on our operating margin in the future
• Our intellectual property rights are valuable, and any inability to protect them could reduce the value of our products, services, and brands as well as affect our ability to compete
• Our business depends on strong brands, and failing to maintain and enhance our brands would hurt our ability to expand our base of users, advertisers, customers, content providers, and other partners
• We face a number of manufacturing and supply chain risks that could affect our ability to supply our products and services and harm our business, financial condition, and operating results
• Our international operations expose us to additional risks that could harm our business, reputation, financial condition, and operating results
• Disruptions in our ability to access future financing or manage our indebtedness could adversely affect our ability to execute our strategy and harm our financial condition
• We are exposed to fluctuations in the fair values of our investments and, in some instances, our financial statements incorporate inherently subjective valuation methodologies
• Issues in the development and use of AI may result in reputational harm and increased liability exposure
• Our ongoing investments in safety, security, and content review will likely continue to identify abuse of our platforms and misuse of user data
• Competition and technology platforms' business practices
• Data privacy, collection, processing, and portability
• Copyright and other intellectual property
• We could be subject to changes in tax rates, the adoption of new US or international tax legislation, or exposure to additional tax liabilities
• The concentration of our stock ownership limits our stockholders' ability to influence corporate matters
• Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could discourage a takeover that stockholders may consider favorable
• Our operating results may fluctuate, which makes our results difficult to predict and could cause our results to fall short of expectations
• Acquisitions, joint ventures, investments, and divestitures could result in operating difficulties, dilution, and other consequences that could harm our business, financial condition, and operating results
• We rely on highly skilled personnel and, if we are unable to retain or motivate key personnel, hire qualified personnel, or maintain and continue to adapt our corporate culture, we may not be able to grow or operate effectively

Filings

Other Communication Services companies