Google's parent company said earnings leaped after stock markets closed on Monday, numbers that were good enough to push its stock up enough to make the company worth more than Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).
Alphabet Inc.(NASDAQ: GOOGL) posted earnings of $8.67 U.S. per share on revenue of $21.33 billion. Analysts had been expecting the company to post a profit of $8.10 U.S. per share.
The surge was enough to push Alphabet's shares up 6% in after-hours trading, valuing the company at more than $554 billion U.S. That makes the corporate entity formerly known as Google Inc. and now known as Alphabet Inc. worth more than Apple, which was previously the most valuable public company in the world at $535 billion U.S.
The online company said its revenue from search ads rose 31% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period a year earlier.
Monday's results are the first time that Alphabet has broken its numbers into two segments — money earned in the core Google internet search and advertising business, plus everything else.
That second category's numbers were not as impressive as the Google segment's were, however. The business segment Alphabet classifies as "other bets" includes projects linked to artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and health technology, and they continue to lose money, the numbers showed.
Although they took in $448 million U.S. in revenue during the quarter, those projects collectively lost $3.5 billion during the quarter. That compares to a loss of $1.9 billion U.S. a year earlier.
Alphabet shares hiked $23.78, or 3.1%, in the first half-hour of trading Tuesday morning, to $794.55 U.S., within a 52-week trading range of $521.72 U.S. to $794.55 U.S.
