Google Owner Alphabet Dethrones Apple as World's Most Valuable Company

Alphabet, Google's parent company, has dethroned Apple as the world's most valuable company after a blockbuster quarter fueled by the growth of its digital advertising business.

In its first earnings report since spinning off Google's businesses and creating the new parent company Alphabet, the company announced a $4.9 billion profit -- up from $4.7 billion at the same time a year ago. The news sent Alphabet's stock price surging, giving the company a rough worth of $570 billion versus Apple, which is worth around $535 billion.

Apple announced a record quarter last week. However, the company faces a tough road in 2016 as smartphone sales are starting to stagnate. Meanwhile, Google's advertising business is still the engine that is driving the company forward. Paid clicks on advertisements have grown 31 percent year over year, according to the report, with much of the growth coming from mobile.

"Alphabet had the combination of growth and transparency, which is the magic 1-2 combination in this market, while Apple is struggling through a bad hitting streak of soft growth," Daniel Ives, managing director at FBR Capital Markets, told ABC News today. "This speaks to some of the challenges [Apple CEO] Tim Cook and Apple have run into over the last few months as the iPhone 6s has been disappointing and resulted in near-term growth concerns for the company."

CNBC