Alphabet stock (GOOG) has delivered a powerful run, rising 2.8% over the past week, 21.1% in the last month, and an eye‑catching 116.6% over the past year. Wall Street’s analysts are firmly bullish, with a StrongBuy consensus and a 12‑month average price target of $398.40 versus a last close of $347.31, signaling room for further upside.
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Among the most optimistic voices is Jeffrey Wlodarczak of Pivotal Research, who reiterated his Buy rating on April 29, 2026 and lifted his price target to a Street‑high $470. This call implies meaningful upside from current levels and reflects his view that Alphabet’s first‑quarter results were much stronger than expected, especially in search and cloud.
Wlodarczak highlights that Alphabet posted its fifth straight quarter of accelerating year‑over‑year search revenue growth at 19%, beating his 15% forecast. Even more impressive, cloud revenue jumped 63%, far ahead of his 48% estimate, with higher‑than‑expected operating margins, while subscriptions and devices also grew 19%, underscoring broad‑based business strength.
The analyst argues that Alphabet is uniquely positioned to monetize its massive AI investments across search, cloud, and mobile, leveraging its proprietary TPU and Axion chips, dominant handset presence, and Gemini AI platform on more than 5 billion devices. He expects Gemini to gain share versus OpenAI, aided by Google’s deal with Apple, default positions on 95%+ of handsets outside China, and a tightly integrated tech stack that boosts cloud market share and profitability.
Wlodarczak, who ranks 3,154 out of 12,160 analysts on TipRanks with a 50.5% success rate and 3.1% average return per rating, does flag risks including regulatory pressures, AI‑driven shifts in search, higher‑than‑expected AI spending, and the challenge of justifying an eventual multi‑trillion‑dollar market cap. Never miss a stock rating. Find all the latest ratings on TipRanks’ Top Wall Street Analysts page.

