Investing.com - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reported second quarter results Thursday that beat analysts' expectations on the top and bottom lines, and shares jumped about 9% after hours.
Also helping the shares were the company's announcement of a $25-billion stock repurchase plan.
Alphabet reported earnings per share of $14.21 a share on revenue of $38.94 billion. Analysts polled by Investing.com anticipated EPS of $11.10 on revenue of $38.16 billion.
That compared to earnings of $11.75 a share on revenue of $32.66 billion in the 2018 second quarter and $9.50 a share on revenue of $36.34 billion in the first quarter.
Revenue for the quarter was up 19.2% from a year ago, bringing Alphabet closer to the 20% revenue growth it had generated for several years. In the first quarter, it had posted revenue growth of 17% growth, which had sent shares falling.
Alphabet generates about 85% of its revenue from tools used in online advertising or the ad space itself.
During the second quarter, Google announced several new advertising tools, including ads on the home page of its Google mobile app as well as new types of ad campaigns spanning YouTube and Gmail.
Scrutiny of the company has recently intensified. On Thursday, the Texas attorney general's office announced that a bipartisan group of state attorneys general is weighing a range of antitrust actions against big tech companies.
And Google is believed one of the companies that the Justice Department will scrutinize for anti-competitive practices. Others that may probe targets include Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB).
-- Reuters contributed to this report.