Social media stocks climb after Alphabet surpasses ad revenue expectations

Shares of social media firms rise premarket after Google parent and YouTube-owner Alphabet GOOGL.O beat Q1 ad sales estimates

Instagram-parent Meta Platforms META.O up 4.3%, image-sharing platform Pinterest PINS.N up 4.5% and Snapchat-owner Snap SNAP.N rises 2.5%

Revenue from Google's ad business, which makes up nearly three-quarters of its overall revenue, rose 8.5% to $66.89 billion in the quarter, above analysts' estimates of 7.7% rise

GOOGL said its AI investments were powering returns at its ad business

SNAP, META set to report results next Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, while PINS is expected to post earnings on May 9 - LSEG data

YTD, PINS down 11.2%, SNAP down 22.7%, META down 8.9%, while Alphabet is down 15.9%