If You Invested $1000 in Alphabet a Decade Ago, This is How Much It'd Be Worth Now

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.The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also plays a factor in investing, especially with particular tech giants, as well as 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-DepthWith 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 being a search-engine provider to cloud computing, ad-based video and music streaming, autonomous vehicles, healthcare providers and others. In the online search arena, Google has a monopoly with more than 94% 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 the cloud-computing, driven by continued strength in 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 reports under two segments — Google Services and Google Cloud. The non-Google businesses fall under the Other Bets segment.Total revenues were $307.4 billion in 2023, up 9% from 2022. Google Services, Google Cloud and Other Bets generated 88.7%, 10.8% and 0.5% of total revenues, respectively.The Google Services 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 77.4% of the total revenues in 2023.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 services.Bottom LineAnyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of a few things: research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in Alphabet a decade ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in December 2014 would be worth $7,344.48, or a 634.45% gain, as of December 12, 2024. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 198.93% and gold's return of 113.75% over the same time frame.Analysts are anticipating more upside for GOOGL. Alphabet is riding on strong cloud and search growth. Google Cloud is benefiting from accelerated growth across AI infrastructure, enterprise AI platform Vertex, generative AI (Gen AI) solutions and core Google Cloud Platform products. GOOGL’s strong AI portfolio is helping it attract new customers, win larger deals, and deepen product adoption among existing customers. Alphabet’s expanding GenAI capabilities present a potential catalyst for future growth. Its dominant position in the search engine market is a strong growth driver. Major search updates and removal of bad ads to enhance the search results continue to boost traffic on Google’s search engine. GOOGL outperformed its industry year to date. However, increasing litigation issues and expenses remain concerns. Rising cloud competition from Microsoft and Amazon is a concern. Shares have gained 9.24% over the past four weeks and there have been 17 higher earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2024 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.Zacks Naming Top 10 Stocks for 2025Want to be tipped off early to our 10 top picks for the entirety of 2025?History suggests their performance could be sensational.From 2012 (when our Director of Research Sheraz Mian assumed responsibility for the portfolio) through November, 2024, the Zacks Top 10 Stocks gained +2,112.6%, more than QUADRUPLING the S&P 500’s +475.6%. Now Sheraz is combing through 4,400 companies to handpick the best 10 tickers to buy and hold in 2025. Don’t miss your chance to get in on these stocks when they’re released on January 2.Be First to New Top 10 Stocks >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks