Google Parent Company Alphabet Joins The $1 Trillion Club With Apple, Microsoft, Aramco

California-based Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOG on Tuesday became the fourth publicly traded United States company to reach $1-trillion market capitalization.

Alphabet Joins Apple, Amazon

The Google parent company joined fellow tech giants Apple Inc. AAPL, which crossed the mark in August 2018, and Microsoft Corporation MSFT, which joined a year later in August 2019.

Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth Amazon.com Inc. AMZN briefly joined the club in September 2018, but has since slipped to $931 billion.

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, or Saudi Aramco, overtook Apple as the world's highest-valued company in December after raising a record IPO. Aramco is valued at $1.84 trillion, crossing the $2-trillion mark briefly last month.

China's state-owned PetroChina Company Ltd. PTR was the world's first company to cross $1 trillion in market cap in 2007, but things went downhill soon after.

Alphabet Seeing Rapid Growth

Alphabet took 47 trading days to reach $1 trillion from $900 billion, according to the Dow Jones Market Data reported by the Wall Street Journal.

This is the fastest that the company has ever made $100 billion. The company grew from $800 to $900 billion in two years, the data shows.

The increase in growth pace comes as Alphabet posted 22% year-on-year growth in revenue in the third quarter of 2019, with revenue from advertising and cloud computing on the rise.

The revenue from the cloud business doubled, reaching $2 billion from February 2018 to July 2019, CNBC reported.

Alphabet is expected to post fourth-quarter results after the market close Feb. 3, and analysts are expecting the company to post $46.9 billion in revenue, up 19.5% year-over-year. 

The fourth-quarter results will be important to Alphabet, as it faces increased pressure to justify its valuation after joining the $1-trillion club. 

Pichai Inspires Investor Confidence

The company's investors have also expressed greater confidence in Sundar Pichai, who took over as the conglomerate's CEO in December, when founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page stepped down from managerial roles, according to the Journal. 

Most of Pichai's additional earnings are tied to the company's stock performance, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This could mean that Pichai might increase share buybacks or institute a dividend payment for the first time in Google's history, the Journal said. 

Price Action

Alphabet's Class A shares closed 0.76% higher at $1,450.16 on Thursday. The shares added another 0.28% in after-hours trading.