Alphabet Reports Strong Fourth Quarter Results; Poised to Overtake Apple

For the first time, Alphabetunveiled the profitability of its search engine Google and its other online services, and how much it is spending on striving technology developments, for exampleself-driving cars.

From IBM to Microsoft to Apple and, now, to Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL). However, the company’s quarterly earnings report also revealed that it lost $3.6 billion in moonshot projects and “other bets”, which are products beyond the Google subsidiary.

The market has wanted four things from Alphabet: consistent revenue growth, margin stabilization, greater disclosure and share buybacks, and they will get all of them this quarter, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said.

Currently, in afterhours trading values, Alphabet is worth $570 billion.

Revenue increased 18% to $21.32bn for the fourth quarter ended 31 December 2015, compared to $18.10bn in the year-ago period.

Breaking this revenue figure down, Ruth Page, CFO and SVP of Alphabet, told investors: “Google Sites revenue was $14.9 billion in the quarter, up 20% year over year…”

Like many big US companies, Alphabet’s revenues took a beating due to the rising value of the USA dollar, which severely cuts down the value of revenue earned in foreign currencies.

On a conference call for investors, Porat reiterated that Alphabet’s strong performance can be attributed to “increased use of mobile search by subscribers” and to the ongoing momentum in YouTube and programmatic advertising.

The company will need to confirm the lead when the markets reopen on Tuesday.

On Monday, Alphabet announced its financial results and surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable company.

Google’s extraneous operations, like Nest, have never been separate from its core business.

The two tech companies have been neck and neck for months, but after Alphabet posted record profits in the fourth quarter, shares of the company spiked in after-hours trading.

Google formed Alphabet in August 2015 to house Google and its other companies, including side projects from space exploration to self-driving cars.