Alphabet revenue declines for first time as Apple announce stock split

The two companies that dominate the global smartphone market have posted history making revenues, but for opposite reasons.

Google’s parent owner Alphabet and its rival Apple have both posted historic, if opposite earnings results.

The iPhone maker celebrated record-setting revenue for the last quarter, while Alphabet’s declined for the first time ever.

The damage wasn’t as bad as Wall Street predicted, and the company that runs Google, Android and YouTube still brought in $US29.9 billion ($A41.5 billion), but it was an 8 per cent dip on the same period last year, when the company posted revenues of $US32.5 billion ($A45.1 billion).

According to The Wall Street Journal, the drop was driven by less ad spending on Google searches, as the YouTube unit posted a slight increase.

After 22 years of posting consecutive growth quarter after quarter, Google’s ad division has had its first stumble, but it looks like it won’t matter.

Analysts predicted worse and the shares rose in after hours trading.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai blamed the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic but said he thought the market was stabilising.

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Google’s revenue declined but not by as much as predicted. Picture: Tobias Schwarz/AFP

Meanwhile, the company Google competes with for dominance on smartphones posted its best result ever for the period, spurred by people buying new devices to stay connected as they transitioned to staying in their homes and working there too.

Apple brought in $US59.7 billion ($A82.8 billion), an increase of 11 per cent over the same quarter last year.

In addition to devices it also made money off its growing services including Music, TV+ and News+.

“Apple’s record June quarter was driven by double-digit growth in both products and services and growth in each of our geographic segments,” CEO Tim Cook said.

If you’re kicking yourself that you didn’t buy shares in Apple when it first listed publicly almost 40 years ago you’re about to get another chance.

The company’s board has approved a four-for-one stock split “to make the stock more accessible to a broader base of investors”.

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Apple shares are about to become a lot more affordable. Picture: Josh Edelson/AFP

Anyone who owns shares in Apple at the close on August 24 will receive three additional shares for every one they own on that day.

A week later trading will resume, and Apple’s shares will be worth, theoretically, a quarter of what they were worth before.

Stock splits are a mostly cosmetic change to a company’s value but make it easier for investors, particularly non-institutional ones (mums and dads) to buy shares.

There are some concerns that stock splits can also mislead the market and cause shares to rise even though nothing has actually changed.

Those concerns are less valid with a massive, cash rich company like Apple, who has successfully split its shares in the past.

The tech giant last did a stock split in 2014.