Google parent's market cap surpasses $3 trillion for first time
What's the story
Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., has joined the elite club of companies with a market capitalization of over $3 trillion. The milestone was achieved on Monday as shares surged by up to 4.3% to reach a value of $251.22 per share, contributing to its overall market cap exceeding the coveted figure. The stock has skyrocketed over 70% since hitting an April low, adding some $1.2 trillion in value during that period.
Market performance
Alphabet only behind NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Apple
With this latest surge, Alphabet ($3.04 trillion) joins an exclusive group of companies with a market cap exceeding $3 trillion. The list includes tech giants NVIDIA ($4.32 trillion), Microsoft ($3.83 trillion), and Apple ($3.51 trillion). The recent jump in Alphabet's stock price was mainly driven by a long-awaited antitrust ruling that spared the search giant from some of the harshest penalties sought by regulators.
Market impact
Citigroup raises price target on Alphabet stock
The antitrust ruling came after Alphabet's Q2 earnings report, which showed a surge in demand for its artificial intelligence (AI) products. Citigroup analyst Ron Josey raised his price target on Alphabet's stock from $225 to $280, citing "an accelerated product development cycle that is beginning to emerge with greater Gemini adoption across both its Ads and Cloud businesses."
Leadership strategy
Sundar Pichai's challenges as CEO
Since becoming Alphabet's CEO in 2019, Sundar Pichai has had to navigate the rise of new competitors in the AI space. This comes while also dealing with aggressive regulators in the US and Europe. The emergence of competitors like Perplexity and OpenAI may have influenced the context in which Google secured a favorable antitrust ruling recently. A lot rides on Gemini, Google's flagship suite of AI models, for its ambitions to become a major player in this field.