Alphabet Passes Apple as World’s Most Valuable Company

Jack Clark, reporting for Bloomberg:

Google reported profit and sales that topped estimates, lifted by robust sales of online ads and tighter cost controls, putting parent Alphabet Inc. on track to overtake Apple Inc. as the world’s most valuable company.

The results, reported for the first time under a new structure that separates Google’s main search and advertising operations from riskier investments, show that fourth-quarter revenue, excluding sales passed on to partners, rose 19 percent to $17.3 billion. That exceeded analysts’ average projection for $16.9 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Profit, before certain items, was $8.67 a share, beating the prediction for $8.08. […]

The shares of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet rose as much as 9.4 percent in extended trading. The stock advanced 1.2 percent to $770.77 at the close in New York, giving the company a market capitalization of $523.1 billion, compared with $534.7 billion for Apple.

I saw this coming a few weeks ago.

Update: To be clear, Alphabet’s closing price today left it around $11 billion behind Apple, but their stock is way up in after-hours trading (what Bloomberg calls “extended trading”).

★ Monday, 1 February 2016