Alphabet Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL) Shares Are Worth at Least 29% More, Worth Buying the Dip

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL) reported higher Q1 free cash flow (FCF) results on Thursday, April 24, than last year. However, despite trailing 12-month (TTM) capex spending that surged over 50%, its FCF margins remained high.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reported higher Q1 free cash flow (FCF) results than last year. However, despite trailing 12-month (TTM) capex spending that surged over 50%, its FCF margins remained high. That makes GOOG stock look cheap here, worth at least 29% more at $211 per share. This article will describe why.

GOOG closed Friday, April 24, at $163.85, up from a recent low of $146.58 on April 8. However, this price is still well off its 3-month high of $207.71 on Feb. 4.

Alphabet's results indicate that the market fears about the company's earnings and FCF may have been overblown. Given its historical FCF yield metrics the stock looks cheap. Let's look into that.

Strong Free Cash Flow, Despite Significantly Higher Capex

Alphabet's Q1 revenue was up +12% year-over-year to $92.234 billion, and its FCF came in at $18.953 billion. That FCF was also +12.57% higher than a year ago, as can be seen in the table below.

Moreover, the TTM FCF figure in the table of $74.881 billion was +8.35% higher than the $69.111 billion TTM FCF from a year ago, using Seeking Alpha data.

However, look at these figures more closely. It shows that capex spending has increased significantly in the last two quarters. In fact, the Q1 2025 figure was 48% higher at $17.2 billion compared to a year ago at $12.0 billion.

Now the market knew this was happening. The company had made it clear it was spending a good deal more on data centers and AI infrastructure. That was why there were fears that Alphabet's free cash flow and, more specifically, its FCF margins would tumble.

But they haven't. For example, last quarter, the $18.953 billion in FCF represented 21.0% of the $90.234 billion revenue. Last year in Q1 2024, the $16.936 billion FCF was 20.9% of the $80.539 billion in revenue.

In other words, despite a massive increase in capex spending (+48%), Alphabet still squeezed out a higher amount of cash flow (after capex spending) as a proportion of sales. That means it's managing its other costs very well.

Moreover, this shows up in the TTM figures. For example, the $74.881 billion in TTM FCF was 20.8% of $359.7 billion in TTM revenue. A year ago, the $69.11 billion in TTM FCF (SA data) was 21.7% of the $318.146 billion in sales. That was despite 52% higher capex spending over the two TTM periods (i.e., $57.7b vs. $37.97b).

As a result, going forward, we can still expect Alphabet to maintain at least a 21% FCF margin. Let's use that to forecast its future FCF and then set a price target.

Projecting FCF And Setting A Price Target

For example, analysts now forecast that Alphabet's 2025 revenue will rise by +10.6% to $387.25 billion (from $350.018 in 2024) and +10.7% to $428.73 billion in 2026.

That means its average run-rate revenue for the next 12 months (NTM) is about $437.5 billion (almost 25% higher than 2024). As a result, applying a 21% FCF margin to this NTM figure allows us to project its future FCF:

$437.5b NTM revenue x 0.21 FCF margin = $91.875 billion NTM FCF

That is 22.7% higher than its TTM FCF figure in the table above ($74.881 billion). This could lead to a higher stock market valuation.

For example, Alphabet's market cap is $1,954 billion (i.e., almost $2 trillion). So, it