06:15 AM EDT, 04/26/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) shares spiked early Friday after recording stronger-than-expected first-quarter results, while the Google ( GOOG ) parent initiated its first-ever dividend alongside a $70 billion stock buyback program.

Earnings came in at $1.89 a share for the March quarter, jumping from $1.17 the year before, the technology giant said late Thurssday. That topped the Capital IQ-polled consensus of $1.50. Revenue climbed 15% to $80.54 billion, surpassing the Street's view for $78.7 billion.

Alphabet's board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share. The dividend will be paid June 17 to shareholders of record as of June 10, on each class A, class B and class C share. The board also authorized the company to back up to an additional $70 billion of its class A and class C shares.

"We are very pleased with our financial results for the first quarter driven, in particular, by strength in search and cloud as well as the ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base," Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said in a statement. The stock advanced more than 11% in premarket activity.

Google Search and other advertising revenue rose 14% to $46.16 billion, "led again by growth in retail," according to Porat. YouTube ( GOOG ) ads surged 21% to $8.09 billion "driven by both brand advertising and direct response," Porat said, while network advertising revenue edged down 1% to $7.41 billion.

Google Services revenue grew to $70.4 billion from $61.96 billion in the 2023 quarter. Google Cloud gained 28% to $9.57 billion, "reflecting significant growth in (Google ( GOOG ) cloud platform) with an increasing contribution from (artificial intelligence) and strong Google ( GOOG ) workspace growth, primarily driven by increases in average revenue per seat," Porat told analysts.

Operating margin was 32% for the quarter versus 25% last year. Total costs and expenses widened to $55.07 billion from $52.37 billion year-on-year. The company recorded employee severance and other charges of $716 million during the first quarter, reflecting a $1.3 billion decrease from the prior-year period.

"Looking ahead, we remain focused on our efforts to moderate the pace of expense growth in order to create capacity for the increases in depreciation and expenses associated with the higher levels of investment in our technical infrastructure," Porat said on the call. "We believe these efforts will enable us to deliver full-year 2024 Alphabet operating margin expansion relative to 2023."

"We come away from results incrementally positive given the implications for near-term growth and margin, as well as commentary from management related to (search generative experience) that should alleviate longer-term investor concerns regarding the sustainability of the search business," Wedbush Securities said in a late Thursday client note. The brokerage reiterated its outperform rating on Alphabet's stock and lifted the 12-month price target to $205 from $175.

Price: 176.08, Change: +18.13, Percent Change: +11.48