June 29 (Reuters) - Alphabet shares climbed on Monday as the Google parent made its debut in the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing Verizon Communications ( VZ ), and immediately ranking among its most influential members.

-- Its shares rose 3.7% to $350.24, offering one of the biggest boosts to the 30-member Dow.

-- The company replaced Verizon on the index, S&P Dow Jones Indices said in an announcement on June 23.

-- As a higher-priced stock, Alphabet carries more weight in the price-weighted index than Verizon did, which was one of its least influential members, and broadens the Dow's exposure to digital advertising, cloud computing and AI.

-- The addition lifts to five the number of 'Magnificent Seven' members in the Dow, alongside Nvidia, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.

-- The previous reshuffle in November 2024 brought in Nvidia and Sherwin-Williams in place of Intel and Dow Inc.

-- Index funds tracking the Dow must buy Alphabet to mirror the change, but the demand is likely to be modest: the Dow had about $115 billion in assets indexed and benchmarked to it as of December 31, 2024, against roughly $20 trillion for the S&P 500, where Alphabet is already a member, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

-- Alphabet shares are up roughly 11% this year, as of last close, among the best performers in the Magnificent Seven group of tech mega-caps.

-- The 130-year-old Dow remains one of the most widely cited gauges of U.S. market sentiment.

-- Verizon shares fell 7.8% to $42.03 in a broad retreat in telecom stocks after Comcast said it would split into two publicly traded companies through a spinoff of NBCUniversal and Sky.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das)