Tuesday 2 February 2016

Sorry, Apple: Alphabet is now the world's most valuable company

There's been a shake-up today in the never ending saga of comparing Apples to Android, as Alphabet, has topped the iPhone-maker as the world's most valuable company.

That's right, even though Apple just made more money than it ever has, Google's new parent company now has a larger market cap on Wall Street after reporting its fourth quarter earnings.

Alphabet is worth $570 billion (about £399b, AU$805b), with much of the profits owed to Google search and Android. Apple is worth about $539 (about £377b, AU$761b) right now in after hours trading.

Google and Apple earnings explored

Alphabet has been propelled to "world's most valuable company" status thanks to profit of $23.42 billion (about £16.39b, AU$33.07b) in 2015, after a revenue of $74.54 billion (about £52.18b, AU$105.3b).

It made more money in the latest quarter than Apple, but the bigger difference that investors have seen Apple as heavily reliant on iPhone sales, whereas Alphabet is a bit more diversified.

Google's reliance on search, Android, YouTube and the cloud offset some of the wilder revenue sinkholes of Alphabet. Moonshots, listed as "other bets" lost it $3.56 billion (about £2.49b, AU$5.02b)

Apple, meanwhile, only saw a modest growth in its cash cow, iPhone sales, with revenue up a meager 1% year-over-year, even with 74.4 million iPhones sold in the latest quarter.

Expect to see Apple branch out into other areas, and not just with safe bets like the Apple Watch. All the more reason to think rumors of an Apple VR, an Apple Car and a redesigned iPhone 7 are true.