In 2023, Google's ad revenue amounted to 264.59 billion U.S. dollars. The company generates advertising revenue through its Google Ads platform, which enables advertisers to display ads, product listings and service offerings across Google’s extensive ad network (properties, partner sites, and apps) to web users. Google advertising Advertising accounts for the majority of Google’s revenue, which amounted to a total of 305.63 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. The majority of Google's advertising revenue comes from search advertising. Google market share These revenue figures come as no surprise, as Google accounts for the majority of the online and mobile search market worldwide. As of September 2023, Google was responsible for more than 84 percent of global desktop search traffic. The company holds a market share of more than 80 percent in a wide range of digital markets, having little to no domestic competition in many of them. China, Russia, and to a certain extent, Japan, are some of the few notable exceptions, where local products are more preferred.

In 2021, Google's net search advertising revenue stood at 49.4 billion U.S. dollars. In 2022, the amount was expected to increase by 12.5 percent to reach 55.6 billion. In that year, search ad revenue was forecast to account for roughly 79 percent of Google's total revenue.

In 2022, Google generated 224.5billion U.S. dollars in advertising revenue. This figure is expected to further grow to reach nearly 340 billion U.S. dollars by 2027. The search engine is responsible for roughly 38 percent of the global ad revenue.

In the most recently reported fiscal year, Google's revenue amounted to 348.16 billion U.S. dollars. Google's revenue is largely made up by advertising revenue, which amounted to 264.59 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. As of October 2024, parent company Alphabet ranked first among worldwide internet companies, with a market capitalization of 2,02 billion U.S. dollars. Google’s revenue Founded in 1998, Google is a multinational internet service corporation headquartered in California, United States. Initially conceptualized as a web search engine based on a PageRank algorithm, Google now offers a multitude of desktop, mobile and online products. Google Search remains the company’s core web-based product along with advertising services, communication and publishing tools, development and statistical tools as well as map-related products. Google is also the producer of the mobile operating system Android, Chrome OS, Google TV as well as desktop and mobile applications such as the internet browser Google Chrome or mobile web applications based on pre-existing Google products. Recently, Google has also been developing selected pieces of hardware which ranges from the Nexus series of mobile devices to smart home devices and driverless cars. Due to its immense scale, Google also offers a crisis response service covering disasters, turmoil and emergencies, as well as an open source missing person finder in times of disaster. Despite the vast scope of Google products, the company still collects the majority of its revenue through online advertising on Google Site and Google network websites. Other revenues are generated via product licensing and most recently, digital content and mobile apps via the Google Play Store, a distribution platform for digital content. As of September 2020, some of the highest-grossing Android apps worldwide included mobile games such as Candy Crush Saga, Pokemon Go, and Coin Master.

In the third quarter of 2024, Google's revenue amounted to over 96.05 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 85.5 billion U.S. dollars registered in the same quarter a year prior. The company amounted to an annual revenue of 348.16 billion U.S. dollars throughout 2024, its highest value to date, with most of its earnings being powered by advertising through Google sites and its network. Google advertising The foundations of Google's earnings are its advertising revenues, generated through its Google Ads platform, which enables advertisers to display ads, product listings, and service offerings across its extensive network (properties, partner sites, and apps) to web users via programs like AdSense or AdSearch. In 2024, Google accounted for most of its parent company Alphabet's annual revenues with 234.2 billion U.S. dollars in Google website ad revenues alone. Other sources of revenue Google's multitude of income sources also includes digital content products and apps sold through the digital content distribution platform Google Play, as well as hardware including Chromecast devices and smartphones. Geographically, the biggest single country share of Alphabet’s revenue comes from the United States, and close to 30 percent of revenues originate from the EMEA region.

Advertising remained the main revenue-generating segment for Google in 2024. During the examined year, 77.8 percent of Google’s revenue came from advertising on Google properties and YouTube. The Google Cloud revenue segment generated 10.8 percent of the company's revenues, up from 4.3 percent in 2018.

In 2021, Google generated nearly 62 billion U.S. dollars in revenue with its advertising products and services. The revenue is expected to increase further to reach 81 billion dollars by 2024.

In 2022, Apple generated 4.7 billion U.S. dollars with its global advertising business. A year earlier, the company’s ad revenue stood at one billion less, namely 3.7 billion.

Bitesize info on Apple’s financials

With an estimated brand value of over 947 billion U.S. dollars, Apple beat Google and Amazon in the running for the title of world’s most valuable brand in 2022. During the past decade, the California-based technology titan has expanded and innovated its product and service portfolio at an impressive pace, now serving millions of loyal customers worldwide. Company reports highlighted that Apple’s revenue jumped from just under 275 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 to over 365 billion in 2021, marking an unparalleled annual boost of one hundred billion. The lion’s share of this sum was generated via sales of the iPhone – Apple’s most profitable operating segment by far.

Apple’s position in the online advertising market

Apple’s growth is primarily supported by device sales, whereas its advertising business only accounts for a small fraction of total revenues. This distribution of revenue streams looks fundamentally different from other tech giants. For example, Amazon reported advertising takings of around 31.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, whereas Google’s ad revenues peaked at 210 billion U.S. dollars that year. But even though Apple remains a comparatively small fish in the online advertising pond, the company’s advertising endeavors are still worth looking out for – especially those that center around its Search Ads feature.

In 2024, YouTube's advertising revenue accounted for approximately 13.66 percent of Google's total revenue. That year, the video platform's annual ad revenues amounted to 36.1 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 31.5 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year. YouTube creators Video content creators on YouTube have been evolving with the platform since its creation. In 2020, it was estimated that YouTube supported over 800 thousand jobs worldwide, almost half of which referred to creators located in the United States. Apart from sharing a portion of YouTube advertising revenues, the most popular video creators can decide to license their existing content libraries for a limited amount of time in exchange for their advertising revenues. As YouTube ranked among the leading ad-selling companies worldwide in 2021, the recent success of financing companies focusing on user-generated video content does not come as a surprise. Digital video ads In 2021, global spending for online video advertisement surpassed 61 million U.S. dollars and is expected to reach approximately 90 million U.S. dollars by 2024. Video ads can engage users across multiple devices, with a 2021 survey of app developers worldwide seeing over 40 percent of respondents considering full-screen videos the most effective ad format to acquire new app users.

As estimated, the expenditure on Google advertising of Booking Holdings and the Expedia Group, the leading online travel agencies worldwide based on revenue, increased in 2023 over the previous year. While Booking Holdings and the Expedia Group spent an estimated 3.2 billion and 2.3 billion U.S. dollars on Google ads in 2023, Airbnb dedicated a much smaller budget to promote its business on that search engine. That year, Airbnb's expenditure on Google ads was estimated at roughly 604 million U.S. dollars.

In 2022, Amazon was the largest advertiser in the United States, with advertising investments reaching around 13.5 billion U.S. dollars. Other prominent advertisers on this list included Comcast, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney, and Alphabet (Google).

Digital media takes over the ad market in the United States

In 2022, the largest share of ad expenditures in the United States was attributed to digital pure-play media with 61 percent. Compared to 2019, the pre-COVID era, total media ad revenue is expected to grow by 124 percent in 2021, with video showing the most significant growth, while cinema exhibiting the smallest rate.

Comcast Corp’s revenue soars, but pay TV share shrinks

Established in 1963, Comcast Corporation is a global telecommunications and media company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company offers cable TV and home internet services to millions of customers in the United States. In 2022, total revenue of Comcast Corporation increased and amounted to 121 billion U.S. dollars. That year, the company was estimated to have a pay TV market share in the United States of 22.4 percent – a number that is, however, predicted to decrease slightly in the coming years.

In the most recently reported fiscal year, Alphabet's revenue amounted to 350 billion U.S. dollars, up from 307.3 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate created in 2015 as the parent company of Google, along with several other companies previously owned by or tied to Google. Alphabet business segments Alphabet has several operating segments, including Google and Other Bets. Google is the only reportable segment, as none of the other segments meet the quantitative revenue thresholds to qualify as reportable segments. In 2022, Google segment revenue amounted to 348.1 billion U.S. dollars. During the same fiscal period, the Other Bets segment revenue amounted to 1.64 billion U.S. dollars in total. According to the company, the Google product segment includes “revenues from the company’s main products Ads, Android, Chrome, Google Cloud, Google Maps, digital content distribution platform Google Play, Hardware, Search and YouTube. Google generates revenues primarily from advertising; sales of apps, in-app purchases, digital content products, and hardware; and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings.” Alphabet’s Other Bets segment mainly generates revenues through the sales of TV and internet services through Access, in addition to R&D services and licensing through Verily. Alphabet businesses Calico, CapitalG, GV, Waymo and X are also included in this segment.

In 2024, Alphabet's revenue from Google websites (including YouTube advertising) amounted to around 234.23 billion U.S. dollars, up from 206.5 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year. Google Search is by far the biggest revenue segment of Alphabet. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate created in 2015 as the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by or tied to Google.

In 2024, Meta (formerly Facebook Inc) generated over 160 billion U.S. dollars in ad revenues. Advertising accounts for the vast majority of the social network's revenue. Facebook advertising revenue – additional information Facebook’s business model heavily relies on ads, as the majority of social network’s revenue comes from advertising. In 2020, about 97.9 percent of Facebook's global revenue was generated from advertising, whereas only around two percent was generated by payments and other fees revenue. Facebook ad revenue stood at close to 86 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, a new record for the company and a significant increase in comparison to the previous years. For instance, the social network generated almost seven billion U.S. dollars in ad revenue in 2013, about 10 billion less than the 2015 figure. Facebook's average revenue per user also significantly increased in the same time span, going from 6.81 U.S. dollars in 2013 to 32.03 U.S. dollars in 2020. The U.S. and Canada are important markets for Facebook, considering the average revenue per user (ARPU) in these two countries is far above the global average. Facebook’s ARPU in the U.S. and Canada was 41.41 U.S. dollars in the last quarter of 2019, while the global average was 8.52 U.S. dollars. In Europe, Facebook’s average revenue per user was 13.21 U.S. dollars during the same time period. In terms of segments, mobile is the most promising advertising form for the company. In 2018, Facebook’s mobile advertising revenue already accounted for 92 percent of the social network’s total advertising revenue. Facebook’s mobile advertising revenue grew from an estimate of 13 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 to 50.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2018.

In 2021, search accounted for 79.9 percent of Google's advertising revenue in the United States. In the following years, the share is expected to start dropping. In 2024, it is projected to stand at 77.6 percent.

In 2024, 49 percent of Alphabet's revenue was generated in the United States and 29 percent in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Among all the presented regions, the least share of revenue company's revenue came from Latin America. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate created in 2015 as the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by or tied to Google.

In 2022, search advertising spending amounted to 185.35 billion U.S. dollars worldwide. The expenditure was forecast to increase by approximately six percent annually until 2028, reaching close to 261 billion U.S. dollars.

Search Advertising
Search advertising, or search engine advertising (SEA), refers to the placement of ads on search result pages above or next to organic search results. As these ads target local and keyword-related factors, they have a higher conversion probability, making them a popular tool for online marketers. In the past few years, search advertising has become one of the leading forms of digital advertising worldwide, seeing annual growth in spending. In 2019, global search ad spend stood at nearly 106.5 billion U.S. dollars, trailing only behind display ad expenditures. As consumers are increasingly using their phones for search requests, spending on mobile search advertising is set to increase in the following years.

Leading segment drivers
The United States is the world’s leading market for search advertising, as well as the segment’s top spender. In 2019, over 55 billion U.S. dollars were spent on search advertising, and according to the latest forecasts, spending will surpass 86 billion U.S. dollars by 2023. In return, revenue from search ads is expected to grow by roughly ten percent in 2020. Looking at the placement of ads and the allocation of search advertising budgets, Google stands out as the primary recipient. In 2018, advertisers reported allocating around 60 percent of their search advertising budgets towards the U.S. tech giant.

As of early 2018, the average CPC for legal AdWords on Google Display Network amounted to 0.72 U.S. dollars, whereas the same keywords on search cost 6.75 U.S. dollars per click, becoming the most expensive keyword on Google Search Network in the measured period. In comparison, the second spot belonged to finance & insurance keyword which cost half as much. How much does Google make on advertising? Google search advertising is the largest source of revenue for the company as it accounts for roughly 70 percent of total profits. In 2018, Google generated more than 96 billion U.S. dollars through its search properties. In the same period, Google network properties, including AdMob, AdSense and AdManager generated close to 20 billion U.S dollars, bringing in total ad revenues of 116 billion in 2018. It makes for quite an impressive result taking into account that the entire Google segment of Alphabet brought in slightly over 136 billion dollars in total revenue that year.

Google websites (including search and YouTube) generated an advertising revenue of 234.23 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Total Google segment revenue amounted to over 348.16 billion U.S. dollars in 2024.

In the fiscal year 2023, Google India's revenue amounted to nearly 93 billion Indian rupees. Although a slight decline from the previous year, the revenue continued to reflect an immense recovery from the pandemic years. Google India's derives its revenue from three segments - ad space resale, enterprise product sales, and providing IT services. What made the revenue slip to such a low? To understand this, it is important to note that Google’s advertising revenue is the biggest contributor to its overall revenue. And while Google is the undisputed leader in India’s mobile search engine market, its biggest cash cow- Google AdWords, is registered under the Google Asia Pacific division. As such, the profits from AdWords cannot be filed as part of the Indian division without being taxed. This is mainly owing to the newly imposed accounting standards in India, aimed at providing more transparency in the way technology companies report their financial results. Why India Inc. matters This certainly comes as a blow to the company since India is one of the fastest growing digital ad markets, expected to be worth almost 560 billion rupees by fiscal year 2024. But the tech giant is poised to expand its niche from advertising to other future-driven products including digital payments, cloud computing and more, for which India serves as a fertile testing ground.