Google - Statistics & Facts

Google is a California-based, multinational internet company which provides digital products and services such as online search and advertising, cloud computing and software. In November 2016, Google was ranked first amongst the most visited multi-platform web properties in the United States with 246 million U.S. unique visitors and a market share of 63.4 percent among the leading U.S. search engine providers. Parent company Alphabet's market capitalization in December 2016 was valued at 530.9 billion U.S. dollars. In 2015, American multinational conglomerate Alphabet Inc. was created as the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by or tied to Google. The reorganization of Google into Alphabet was completed on October 2, 2015.

In 2016, the majority of the company's 89.46 billion U.S. dollar revenues came from advertising through Google Sites or Google Network Sites – in 2016, Google Sites' advertising revenue amounted to 63.79 billion U.S. dollars. The annual advertising revenue of Google network websites reached 15.6 billion U.S. dollars. As of December 2016, Google was one of the most popular syndicated ad focus entities in the United States with a 77.8 percent market reach. Google’s quarterly revenue shows an overall growth from the 20.09 billion U.S. dollars in first quarter of 2016 to 25.8 billion U.S. dollars in fourth quarter of 2016.

Google.com is visited most by the users in the United States with a global share of 34.3 percent as of February 2017. Among the leading search engines, the worldwide market share of Google in January 2017 was 89.06 percent.

Although Google’s product originally was based upon online search, the company has significantly broadened its services throughout the years. Video content sharing site YouTube was one of Google’s most prolific and expensive acquisitions and has been heavily integrated into Google’s online presence, its worldwide ubiquity changing the dynamics of user generated content and online video curation. As of February 2017, 68 percent of the U.S. population was found to have accessed YouTube to watch music videos or listen to music. The most popular YouTube partner channel in the United States in December 2016 was BroadbandTV@YouTube with 40.5 million unique users.

Apart from online search, advertising and online video, Google has branched out into further content, most notably the Android mobile operating system which as of the fourth quarter of 2016, accounted for 81.7 percent of the global smartphone operating system market. Content for Android devices can be purchased via the Google Play Store, a digital application distribution platform through which more than 2.8 million apps were made available as of March 2017. The most popular Android apps in the United States include Google products such as Search, Google Mail, YouTube and Google Maps.

Other Google products include the Chrome browser and operating systems, hardware including the Chromecast as well as the company's series of mobile devices such as the Nexus smartphones and tablets.