Google Vaults Past Apple in Total Worth

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Apple have been locked in a contest for the most valuable company in the world for the past few years.

The company’s combined share classes were then valued at $554 billion, beating Apple Inc (AAPL), which was worth around $534 billion and whose shares were slightly falling during extended trading.

Alphabet’s financial results were revealed for the first time since it was set up as the parent company for Google and its other subsidiaries.

Apple took over from Microsoft as the most valuable company in 2010, a position previously occupied by IBM. “Then iPhone madness began”, the report notes.

People made purchases online when time allowed, with Google powering many of their searches and serving up related ads. “From that point through the end of 2015, its shares soared 44 percent, while Apple’s sank 16 percent”. Without the restructuring, it would have reported earnings of $6 billion – and that includes the $1.1 billion quarterly loss from Alphabet’s “other bets”. This is bigger than the Apple’s market capitalisation of $535 billion. The existing Google shareholders became shareholders of the new holding company.

In total, fourth-quarter sales were $21.3 billion, Alphabet said in a statement. Google’s advertising revenue increased 17% to $19.08bn, while the number of ads, or paid clicks, grew 31%.

Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co, told Bloomberg: “Alphabet’s core business looks very healthy”. Analysts had expected revenue of $20.8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. She also justified investments in Other Bets by citing CEO Larry Page’s contention that technological change tends to be revolutionary and not evolutionary.

The new structure under Alphabet is expected to offer more transparency for investors anxious about Google investing in money-losing projects.

So far, the companies that comprise Alphabet include: Google, Nest, X, Verily, venture firms GV and Google Capital and Access, which develops the company’s high speed Internet service, Fiber. Value of company stock increased up to 10 percent, about $8.67 per share.