Only a few minutes after Google's parent company, Alphabet, posted its quarterly earnings, after-hours trading pushed its stock price, surpassing Apple's and making it the world's most valuable company.
The stock price increase makes the company worth $570 billion, comfortably passing Apple's $539 billion valuation.
Of course, it's important to note that it's not yet certain that the price will hold into regular trading — stock prices often move around in times when earnings are announced. Still, it's not insignificant news considering that this is the first time since 2010 that Google has been more valuable than Apple. The news could be temporary, and it means little more than something to brag about, but it is still a noteworthy moment.
Apple and Google traded places as most valuable company quite a bit between 2008 and 2010, before Apple jumped in value between 2010 and 2012, going from being worth $180 billion to being worth a whopping $650 billion. From Google's public IPO in 2004 until April 2008, shortly after the iPhone was released, Google stayed more valuable than Apple.
Google recently announced a business shakeup that saw the creation of its parent company, Alphabet. The Google brand now refers to the Alphabet company that oversees Internet-based products like search and Android, while other divisions, like the Life Sciences branch of Google, now fall under the Alphabet umbrella.
While the company posted a loss of its "non-Google" business of around $3.5 billion during 2015, it made up for it, posting profits of around $23 billion for its Google segment.
