Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Google’s parent company, Alphabet on Thursday became the fourth company in the US to record $1 trillion in market capitalisation after the shares rose 0.87 percent to $1,451.70 on the S&P 500 index, which measures the stock performance of 500 large companies at the US stock exchanges. With this feat, Alphabet has joined Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, which have all crossed the threshold.
The stock gains and consequent record valuation for Alphabet come amid increased calls for online privacy and antitrust regulation that have proven challenging for the business.
Alphabet’s rise has been driven by strong expectations for its advertising sales, a series of acquisitions highlighted by YouTube, and expansion into fledgling markets such as cloud computing and self-driving cars in addition to Google’s core ad revenue, which accounted for 84 percent of Alphabet’s total annual sales in its most recently reported quarter.
With this, it means that Alphabet will report fourth-quarter earnings on February 3, as analysts are expecting it to report revenue of $46.9 billion, a year-over-year upward movement of almost 20 percent.
This can be attributed to change in leadership as Google CEO, Mr Sundar Pichai, took over as CEO of Alphabet in December, after Google co-founders Mr Larry Page and Mr Sergey Brin relinquished control of Alphabet.
Apple was the first US company to hit a $1 trillion cap in 2018, followed later that year by Amazon (which has since dropped below that figure), and Microsoft hit the $1 trillion mark in April 2019.
The next company expected to hit the $1 trillion market cap is Facebook, which, as of the closing bell Thursday, was at about $620 billion.
According to analysts, the gains of big tech-related companies are all the more remarkable as they face antitrust investigations from the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission over their economic prowess. The combined market value of the companies under federal scrutiny — Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook — is nearly $4 trillion.
