Alphabet: Google's parent company overtakes Apple to become the most valuable company in the world

In after-hours trading, share price for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, immediately jumped 9%, giving it a total stock market value of $568bn.

Various media reports reveal that Google has become the world’s most valuable listed company after announcing that its global revenues rose 13% to $75bn (£52bn) last year.

In after-hours trading, share price for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, immediately jumped 9%, giving it a total stock market value of $568bn.

This means the tech giant has eclipsed rival Californian tech firm Apple, which has a value of $535bn, making Alphabet the most valuable company in the world, for now at least.

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“After a six-year audit by the tax authority we are paying the amount of tax that HMRC agrees we should pay. Governments make tax law, the tax authorities enforce the law and Google complies with the law,” Google said in its earnings report, defending its controversial tax rates.

Much of Google income from the UK lands in Ireland and is then put through another Google company in the Netherlands before routing back to Ireland and Bermuda, a UK overseas territory.

The search group is expected to confirm in its annual report that its cash behemoth, situated in a company in the North Atlantic Island, increased by $4bn to $43bn by the end of December.