This company just overtook Apple to become the most valuable in the world

Google’s parent company Alphabet has leapfrogged Apple to become the world’s most valuable company. A strong earnings report, a profit of $4.9bn (£3.4bn) for the fourth quarter, an increase from $4.7bn a year ago, saw the firm’s stock spike in after-hours trading by as much as 9%.

Alphabet now holds a value of around $568bn, compared with Apple, which has a value of $535bn.

It’s the first time Alphabet has separated out the results of its Google business from the ‘Other Bets’. As a whole, Alphabet posted total revenue of $21.32 billion for the fourth quarter, although Google was the driver behind the revenue, the ‘Other Bets’ companies just happy to spend it – losing lost $3.6bn during the period.

The ‘Other Bets’ component of the business includes projects such as life sciences and self-driving cars, among the various other technology that Alphabet is looking to pioneer.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai noted during the report that 7 Google consumer products have more than 1 billion monthly active users, including Gmail, Search, Android, Maps, Chrome, Youtube, and Google Play. In all, the big gain was advertising; paid-for clicks were up 31% across the entire internet, and 40% on Google-owned sites.

Apple has surrendered its position at the apex for the first time since 2010, when it acquired the mantle from Microsoft.

Despite the positives, Google is currently at the centre of a tax row in the UK. Having agreed to pay back £130m in taxes, which stretched back to 2005, the bill has been seen as too lenient by critics and this latest event will only add fuel to that fire.

(Image source: Main: Fortune / Featured: AP)