That is significantly more than Apple, the previous holder of the title of most valuable public company, which is worth about $535 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $8.09 on $20.8 billion in revenue but instead enjoyed earnings of $8.67 per share on $21.3 billion in revenue.
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Net income was $4.92bn, or $7.06 diluted earnings per share, in Q4, compared to $4.67bn, or $6.79 diluted earnings per share, for the same period past year.
The strong showing was enough to push Alphabet’s shares up six per cent in after-hours trading, valuing the company at more than $554 billion US.
Alphabet had a huge opportunity to finally pass Apple as the most valuable company in the world. Nevertheless, Alphabet still managed to take that crown from Apple – an incident which last happened in 2009 when it was still Google. Alphabet said that for its 2015 fiscal year, it spent $869 million on its Other Bets, resulting in revenue of $448 million.
Alphabet’s quarterly profit rose five percent to United States dollars 4.92 billion as a result of remarkable rise in the company’s online advertising revenue, particularly due to searches done by holiday season shoppers using smartphones or tablets.
Google’s massive search-ad operation is basically functioning as an incubator for Google’s “Other Bets”, which includes its self-driving auto project and glucose monitoring contact lense. At that point, the two companies were separated by more than $400 billion, according to CNBC.
Capital expenditures for Google’s core products hit $8.8 billion previous year, spent mostly on data centers and other facilities.
Revenue from “other bets” was $327 million (£158m) in 2014, so there is growth in these sectors, but 2014’s operating loss was under $2 billion (£1.4bn). So investors have had basically no idea how its other projects are going – and how much they may contribute to the company – other than estimates.
However, the new structure under Alphabet is anticipated to offer more transparency for investors bothered about Google investing in money-losing projects.
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Alphabet subsidiaries include Google, Nest Labs, and Google X labs devoted to big-vision new technologies such as self-driving cars.
