Ads put Alphabet within spitting range of Apple

Upbeat: For Alphabet, search traffic on mobiles surpassed desktop traffic worldwide for the first time, while Amazon was able to boost margins, an area of concern, as its cloud business boomed.

NEW YORK: Alphabet could soon become the most valuable company in the world. The Google powerhouse traded on the morning of Jan 22 with an equity value above US$500bil (RM2.14tril), less than 10% shy of the iPhone maker's. 

Investors value the search firm's earnings from rapidly growing digital advertising more than twice as highly as Apple's in a saturating smartphone market. Wall Street, however, may be overlooking Alphabet's risks.