Alphabet Joins The $700 Billion Club

Investing.com - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has officially joined Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) as the second US company in the $700 billion market-cap club. After reporting strong earnings on Thursday evening, Alphabet's stock rallied more than 4% on Friday. The jump, from $991 to $1033, was enough to get Alphabet over the $700 billion milestone.Alphabet specializes in internet-related products and services, and the vast majority of its profits come from ad sales. In the last quarter, nearly 87% of all revenue – $24 billion out of $28 billion – was generated by ads. Alphabet made its public debut as Google in August, 2004, and it has taken the tech giant only 13 years to hit $700 billion, less than half the time it took Apple. Apple went public in December, 1980, and it took 34 years for it to pass the $700 billion threshold. Apple started with its Mac computer, but really took off when it introduced the iPod, before also coming out with the iPhone, iPad, and a variety of other iProducts.With a current market-cap of more than $800 billion, Apple has a big lead over Google, and ironically, Alphabet’s payments to Apple helps to keep Apple ahead. One Bernstein analyst estimated that Google would pay Apple $3 billion in 2017 to remain the default search engine on iOS devices, an amount which could account for close to five percent of Apple’s total operating profit. Will Google ever overtake Apple and climb into the number one spot?