Google parent overtakes Apple as world’s most valuable company

On Monday Alphabet Inctopped Wall Street’s quarterly profit forecasts, powered by strong mobile advertising sales, conveying the shares of Google’s parental company higher in after-hours trading to beat Apple Inc as the most valued U.S. Company.

Shares of Google’s parent company are pulling ahead of Apple in early trading Tuesday. “We’re excited about the opportunities we have across Google and Other Bets to use technology to improve the lives of billions of people”, says Ruth Porat, Alphabet Chief Financial Officer.

Alphabet Inc. earned $4.9 billion in net income on revenue of $21.3 billion in the fourth quarter.

While Apple’s market cap may be smaller, investors need to keep in mind that Alphabet is not the most widely owned stock versus Apple-and that Alphabet simply can not be pushed by outsiders to make changes if the company does not want to.

United States broker Wedbush said mobile search drove the figures, helped by desktop search, while YouTube doubled the number of small business advertisers in the last two years.

Its overall results were better than expected.

The rest of Alphabet is made up of the group’s more experimental ventures such as self-driving cars and internet balloon programmes.

Or, as Porat put it during the call, “The majority of efforts within the Other Bets are pre-revenue”.

This translate to a profit margin of 40 percent while Apple recorded an operating profit margin of 32 percent in its most recent quarter.

Alphabet lost almost $3.6 billion United States dollars in 2015 on its Other Bets moonshot projects, a number that’s considerably worse than 2014’s $1.9 billion USD in loses on the same projects.

Google, under Alphabet, still controls services such as Search, Maps, Ads, YouTube, Apps, Coud, Android, and Chrome. Paid clicks from ads were up 31 percent, beating analyst expectations of 22.4 percent.

Finally, revenue from non-advertising sources within the Google segment climbed 24% year over year to $2.1 billion, driven by strong growth from Play, Cloud, and Apps.