At the official close
of trade, Alphabet was worth $530.1 billion based on its share value,
compared to $534.7 billion for Apple, but shares in the Internet search
colossus soared in after-hours trading to reach $791 shortly before 0400
GMT.
If those gains hold in official trading when
the Nasdaq opens in New York City today, Alphabet would officially
overtake Apple as the world’s biggest company by market value.
Alphabet’s
reported quarterly profit rose 5 per cent to $4.92 billion on the back
of strong online advertising revenue, particularly from searches done by
holiday season shoppers using smartphones or tablets.
“This
holiday season, we found that shopping moments replaced shopping
marathons,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said during an earnings
call.
People made purchases online when time allowed, with Google powering many of their searches and serving up related ads.
Google
ad revenue climbed globally, gaining on both mobile devices and desktop
computers, according to Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat.
The California-based Internet colossus said its revenue topped $21.3 billion in the final three months of last year.
Prime
revenue drivers in Q4 were mobile search ads and ads on YouTube, where
people watch “hundreds of millions” of hours of video daily.
Porat
said the strong revenue growth was a return on years of investment in
mobile search, YouTube and so—called programmatic advertising, which
involves ads being sold automatically using software.
The
earnings report was the first in which recently formed parent
corporation Alphabet separated money made by Google from what it calls
“Other Bets” such as its work on self—driving cars or delivering
Internet using high-altitude balloons.
The new
structure under Alphabet is expected to offer more transparency for
investors worried about Google investing in money-losing projects.
“Essentially,
what they have now is a big advertising business and a venture capital
business,” Forrester analyst Frank Gillett said of the new earnings
presentation.
By: PTI.
Review:
Emerging Market Formulations & Research Unit, Flagship Records.
For
The #FacebookTeam