By Hannes Breustedt and Valerie Hamilton, dpa, Hamburg, Germany
Alphabet, the parent company of Internet giant Google, surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company Monday, when investors snapped up stock after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings of nearly $5 billion.
The net earnings, $4.9 billion to be precise, were an increase from $4.7 billion the year before. Revenue rose 18 percent year-on-year to $21.3 billion.
The news beat analyst expectations and sent the company's shares skyrocketing. In after-hours trading, Alphabet shares shot up as much as 8 percent, boosting the company's market value as high as $570 billion, rivaling Apple's current value of $533 billion.
Outside of market hours, the values are unofficial, but are an indicator Alphabet could take Apple's crown when trading begins Tuesday.
Google formed Alphabet in August 2015 to house Google and its other companies, including side projects from space exploration to self-driving cars. But the search engine still represents by far most of the company's earnings.
Advertising revenues for Google and its YouTube, Gmail and Android subsidiaries rose 17 percent year on year to $19 billion, while the side projects, which the company calls Other Bets, lost more than $3.5 billion.
©2016 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
