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APPLE IS NO longer the most valuable company in the world after Alphabet, Google’s parent company, surpassed it.
The company made a profit of $4.9 billion (€4.48 billion) in the last quarter of 2015, and saw its value rise to $568 billion (€520 billion) in after-hours trading, beating Apple’s value of $535 billion (€490 billion).
This was Alphabet’s first earnings report after its major overhaul back in August, separating businesses like Google and YouTube from its ‘Other Bets’ business, which includes experimental projects like self-driving cars, its internet delivering balloons project Google Loon and Google X.
Its spending on ‘Other Bets’ increased significantly in the past year, where it made a loss of $3.56 billion (€3.2 billion) in the last three months of 2015.
Online advertising, however, still makes up the bulk of its revenue, where it made $19.36 billion (€17.74 billion) in that quarter while total revenue was $21.32 billion (€19.5 billion), an 18% increase year-on-year.
Alphabet now employs almost 62,000 people worldwide.
Growing rivalry
After Alphabet’s earning call, Facebook decided to announce how WhatsApp now has one billion users signed up to its service, something it was originally hoping would happen at the start of the year.
During the call, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned how seven of its products now have more than a billion monthly active users including Search, Android, Chrome, YouTube, Google Play and now Gmail.
Also, he took a shot at Facebook’s video service and the news its users watch 100 million hours daily saying that on YouTube, people watch hundreds of millions of hours of video every day. He didn’t give specific figures, but it’s believed it ranges around 500 million hours of video a day.
A similar incident happened last week where Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced it was working on an AI that would be able to play Go, the ancient Chinese game. Later on the same day, the Google-owned company DeepMind announced it developed an AI that defeated the European champion in the same game.
Alphabet’s rivalry with Apple continues to grow since both own the two biggest smartphone platforms out there. Despite having more than a billion people using Android, recent court documents revealed how Google paid Apple more than $1 billion to keep its search bar on iOS.
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Russia the mushroom state, where the vast majority of the population is kept in the dark and fed on bs. If Putin really thinks that attacking Ukraine is a just cause, he’d be telling his people the truth, instead of desperately trying to keep the lid on what’s taking place.
The basic issue here is Putin and his mates are establishing structures to protect their continued robbery of Russia. Unfortunately Western politicians, bankers and others enabled Russian oligarch’s accumulate their wealth for over 20 years and therefore they share responsibility for the many atrocities recently perpetrated by Russia. Turning a blind eye is costing the world dearly.
@Neil Neart: Wow. I don’t blame anyone but Russia for this.
@Neil Neart: I think you are almost completely right except you forgot to blame Russia for invading its neighbour which is entirely Russias responsibility.
@Neil Neart: I guess you can take your pick-
A. West did nothing to retain Putin over the years- so its our fault.
B. West did too much meddling- so its our fault.
Ejits.
@Neil Neart: I guess you can take your pick-
A. West did nothing to retain Putin over the years so its our fault.
B. West did too much meddling- so its our fault.
Ejits.
Russians negotiating in nothing but bad faith.
Oligarch means millionaire
@David Haye: Including our own who is the owner of Aughish Alumina.
@David Haye: eegit.
@David Haye: Fool
Sanctions against Oleg Deripaska? Michael Martin has his head in the sand about this guy.
There can be no long win here for Russia and though the emperor himself surely now is aware he has no clothes, he is keen to bludgeon his way to consensus on his most magnificent garment amidst the bodies of families and children. Fleeting truth will not last. The Greeks knew the power of the word Logos a deep truth it cannot be hidden.
What about our own Oligarc Oleg?
have your say