Google's parent company Alphabet might be only less than a year old but it's already one of the world's most valuable companies thanks to its subsidiaries.
And by the look of its latest quarterly earning results, there's no stopping it. The umbrella outfit beat analyst expectations by 39 cents a share this quarter and was up more than 4 per cent in after hours trading on Thursday.
Alphabet was created almost a year ago, when the firm's co-founder Larry Page announced the radical restructuring of Google to become a subsidiary of a new entity called Alphabet. The largest of the companies under Alphabet's wing is obviously Google, along with the Calico, Nest, Fibre, Google Venture, Google Capital and Google X businesses.
Overall, Google increased revenue by 21 per cent compared to last year, which is now towering at $20.5 billion, most of which was thanks to advertising which has always been Google’s main revenue stream.
However, Alphabet's latest quarterly results show that the firm is seeing growth in other areas of its business, like cloud computing, mobile and Google Fiber.
CFO Ruth Porat said in a statement that the results "reflect the successful investments we've made over many years in rapidly expanding areas such as mobile and video". She added that the tech giant is also investing in speculative research that could pay off down the road, while setting reasonable limits on spending.
Alphabet isn't the only tech giant celebrating impressive financial results this quarter.
Retail behemoth Amazon also beat Wall Street expectations, and saw second quarter earnings climb 31 per cent to $30.4 billion and recorded a net income of $857 million, or $1.78 a share, quite a jump from the relatively-minuscule $92 million net income it recorded a year ago.
It was the retail giant's fifth-straight period of profitability, ensuring Amazon stock has remained up more than 40 per cent over the past year.
But the tech industry's money-making fun didn't stop there. Samsung, too, reported beating analysts' expectations in its latest earnings results released on Thursday. Not only that, but the results were the company's best in two years due to high sales of its Galaxy smartphones.
The South Korean firm said its April-to-June net income rose 2 per cent from a year ago to $6.84 billion.
The company also predicted its performance will continue to be "solid" during the rest of the year across its electronics business due to demand for its components, such as high-end OLED displays that are used as screens for premium smartphones, which are expected to increase "substantially".
However, the smartphone maker said it will be spending more on mobile marketing for the upcoming release of a large-screen smartphone next week, which will no doubt be it's usual attempt to distract consumers from any new iPhone launches by Apple, expected in September.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
