The market absolutely adored Alphabet’s financials and drove the stock up $39.00/ share or 5.91 percent in after-hours trading to $791.00 per share. Google apps and devices compete for market share against Apple iPhones.
Advertisement
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is encroaching on Apple’s status as the most valuable company in the world, reports CNN.
And, as Google continues to rake in money thanks to advertising, the other arms of the parent company seem to excel at generating a lot of buzz.
For the first time, the company disclosed the profitability of Google’s search engine and its other online services, and how much it is spending on ambitious technology projects such as self-driving cars.
Alphabet’s total revenue for the fourth quarter was $21.3bn, up 18 per cent year-on-year. Analysts had expected US$20.77 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. “Given the early stage nature of a number of these efforts, they are likely to require additional investment prior to generating very meaningful revenues”, said Ruth Porat, Alphabet Chief Financial Officer.
For the first time the company’s core business was broken out from its big-swing “moonshot” projects, allowing investors to see inside the tech giant with a little more clarity, and they like it a lot.
The financials marked several milestones; a record quarterly revenue of $75.9 billion, all-time record sales of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV, and reaching an active installed user base of 1 billion. Google websites generated $14.9 billion, Google Network Members’ websites $4.1 billion, Google advertising revenues $19.1 billion and Google other revenues $2.1 billion.
Stock in Alphabet, a company typically referred to as Google, has increased 43 percent in value from one year ago, putting it in the same league as Apple’s valuation. “There were concerns that it had a negative impact on its desktop business, but as mobile takes over for more searches, mobile ads are becoming closer in value to the desktop ads”.
Ms. Porat signaled her resolve again Monday in a conference call with analysts. Its aggregate cost-per-click was -13% year-over-year.
Advertisement
The revenue increase was attributed to strong growth in mobile search, YouTube and advertising.
