Wait, Google's 'moon shots' cost how much??? - CNET

"It's an exciting new chapter," Porat said during a conference call. "It's about getting more ambitious things done."

The company also added more than 8,200 employees to its workforce, bring the total to 61,814. That's up 15 percent from last year.

In August, Google cofounder Page dropped a bombshell when he announced that he and Brin were reorganizing the company they founded 18 years ago. Alphabet is a holding company, with nine semi-independent companies tucked into it. They include the ad-driven Google search engine business, as well as more nascent efforts such as smart devices company Nest, life sciences firm Verily and X, home of more speculative experiments like self-driving cars.

Move over, Apple. Alphabet's worth more

Google's Inteet services -- the bread and butter of its portfolio that includes its search engine, YouTube and Android mobile software -- is still on top. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said during the call that Gmail now has 1 billion active monthly users. It joins six other products with more than a billion users apiece: search, the mobile operating system Android, the Web browser Chrome, maps, the marketplace Play and YouTube.

That's crucial because Google's eaings are the sole reason Alphabet can afford to experiment with so many other projects.

In total, fourth-quarter sales rose 18 percent to $21.3 billion, Alphabet said in a statement. Profit, minus some costs, was $8.67 a share. Analysts were expecting $20.77 billion in sales and eaings of $8.09 per share.

Investors seemed happy with the results. As the stock rose more than 5 percent in after-hours trading, the company's market cap topped $554 billion, tuing Alphabet into the most highly valued company in the world. Up until today, the title has belonged to Apple, which is valued at about $541 billion.

Other companies contained within Alphabet include venture firms GV and Google Capital, along with Access, which develops the company's high-speed Inteet service, Fiber. There's also Calico, which focuses on human aging, and Sidewalk Labs, which takes on urban planning.

Most of the Alphabet divisions are still in their very early stages. The exception is Nest, which Google bought in 2014 for more than $3 billion. Nest, which makes Inteet-connected thermostats and smoke detectors, has become the model for how an Alphabet company should run, according to a person familiar with the matter.