Google LLC (/ˈɡuːɡəl/ ⓘ, GOO-ghəl) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI).[9] It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world"[10] and is one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field of AI.[11][12][13] Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc. is one of the five Big Tech companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.
This article is about the company. For the search engine provided by the company, see Google Search. For the parent company with the stock tickers GOOG and GOOGL, see Alphabet Inc. For other uses, see Google (disambiguation).Formerly
Google Inc. (1998–2017)
NASDAQ: GOOGL, GOOG
September 4, 1998[a] in Menlo Park, California, United States
Worldwide
139,995 (2021) 
Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together, they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of its stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.[14]
The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation (Waze & Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web navigation (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), videotelephony (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch & Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), AI (Google Assistant & Gemini), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming (Stadia), Glass, Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.[15][16]
Google's other ventures outside of internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google DeepMind).[17]
Google and YouTube are the two most-visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, online video platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, machine learning framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share.[18] On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes[19] and fourth by Interbrand.[20] It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position.
Corporate affairs
Stock price performance and quarterly earnings
Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004. At IPO, the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.[66][67] The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.[70] The stock performed well after the IPO, with shares hitting $350 for the first time on October 31, 2007,[191] primarily because of strong sales and earnings in the online advertising market.[192] The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[192] GOOG shares split into GOOG class C shares and GOOGL class A shares.[193] The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbols GOOGL and GOOG, and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1. These ticker symbols now refer to Alphabet Inc., Google's holding company, since the fourth quarter of 2015.[194]
In the third quarter of 2005, Google reported a 700% increase in profit, largely due to large companies shifting their advertising strategies from newspapers, magazines, and television to the Internet.[195][196][197]
For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues.[198] In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs.[199]
Google generated $50 billion in annual revenue for the first time in 2012, generating $38 billion the previous year. In January 2013, then-CEO Larry Page commented, "We ended 2012 with a strong quarter ... Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half."[200]
Google's consolidated revenue for the third quarter of 2013 was reported in mid-October 2013 as $14.89 billion, a 12 percent increase compared to the previous quarter.[201] Google's Internet business was responsible for $10.8 billion of this total, with an increase in the number of users' clicks on advertisements.[202] By January 2014, Google's market capitalization had grown to $397 billion.[203]