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.
Google and Apple earnings explored
Alphabet has been propelled to 'world's most valuable company' status thanks to profits of $23.42 billion (about £16.39bn, AU$33.07bn) in 2015, after a revenue of $74.54 billion (about £52.18bn, AU$105.3bn).
It made more money in the latest quarter than Apple, but there's a bigger difference investors are seeing: 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 £2.49bn, AU$5.02bn).
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-bet categories 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.
- Next Androids: Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5
