For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. This factor can impact your investment portfolio as well as help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
Another factor that can influence investors is FOMO, or the fear of missing out, especially with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in Alphabet (GOOGL) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to GOOGL for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
Alphabet's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at Alphabet's main business drivers.
Alphabet is one of the most innovative companies in the modern technological age. Over the last few years, the company has evolved from primarily a search-engine provider to cloud computing, ad-based video and music streaming, autonomous vehicles, healthcare and others. In the online search arena, Google has a monopoly with roughly 90% of the online search volume and market. Over the years, the company has witnessed increase in search queries, resulting from ongoing growth in user adoption and usage, primarily on mobile devices, continued growth in advertiser activity, and improvements in ad formats.
The company is gaining market share in cloud-computing, driven by continued strength in the Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace.
Alphabet also enjoys a dominant position in the autonomous vehicles market, thanks to Waymo’s relentless efforts. In addition, it has bolstered its footprint in the healthcare industry with its life science division, Verily. The company has also become a renowned name in the world of entertainment on the back of YouTube.
Alphabet is also known as the maker of smartwatches (Pixel Watch), laptops and tablets (Chromebooks), and smart home products (Google Nest).
Alphabet, headquartered in Mountain View, CA, runs several businesses, most of which come under Google, which includes under two reportable segments — Google Services and Google Cloud. The non-Google businesses fall under the Other Bets segment.
Total revenues were $402.84 billion in 2025, up 15% from 2024. Google Services, Google Cloud and Other Bets generated 85.1%, 14.6% and 0.4% of total revenues, respectively.
The Google Services segment includes products and services such as ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. The segment generates revenues primarily from performance and brand advertising, which remains crucial for the overall business. Ad revenues accounted for 73.2% of the total revenues in 2025.
Google Cloud is comprised of Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace. Its key capabilities include AI infrastructure, database and analytics, collaboration tools, cybersecurity and generative AI.
Other Bets is a combination of multiple businesses, generating revenues primarily from the sale of healthcare-related and internet
Bottom Line
Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio requires research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in Alphabet, ten years ago, you're likely feeling pretty good about your investment today.
A $1000 investment made in April 2016 would be worth $8,325.17, or a gain of 732.52%, as of April 14, 2026, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.
The S&P 500 rose 230.68% and the price of gold increased 271.75% over the same time frame in comparison.
Analysts are anticipating more upside for GOOGL.
Alphabetshares have outperformed the industry in a year. GOOGL is benefiting from accelerated growth across AI infrastructure, Google Cloud, and Search. Google Cloud ended the fourth quarter of 2025 with $240 billion in backlog, up 55% sequentially. GOOGL has more than 325 million paid subscriptions across consumer services with strong adoption for Google One and YouTube Premium. Gemini app now has over 750 million monthly active users and the company sold more than 8 million paid seats of Gemini enterprise in Q4. Search is benefiting from AI Overviews and AI Mode that has driven growth in overall queries. Launching of personal intelligence in AI Mode in search and the Gemini app bodes well for Alphabet's prospects. YouTube is benefiting from the growing demand for shorts. However, stiff competition in cloud computing has been concerning.
Shares have gained 5.15% over the past four weeks and there have been 1 higher earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2026 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).