At the end of 2024, Alphabet had 183,323 full-time employees. Up until 2015, these figures were reported as Google employees. The alphabet was created through a corporate restructuring of Google in October 2015 and became the parent company of Google as well as several of its former subsidiaries, including Calico, X, CapitalG and Sidewalk Labs. Google’s popularity Google is one of the most famous internet companies in the world, and in May 2024, the most visited multi-platform website in the United States, with over 278 million U.S. unique visitors during that month alone. The California-based multinational internet company has been delivering digital products and services since its creation in 1996. Due to the popularity of its search engine, the verb “to google” has entered the everyday language and the Oxford Dictionary. In addition to that, the company has also crafted itself as one of the most desirable employers, largely due to the many perks it offers in its offices worldwide. Some of the most appealing aspects of working for Google according to its employees include readily available foods and drinks, good working conditions, and ample communal spaces for relaxing, as well as many health benefits and generous salaries. Google offices and employees As of February 2022, Google and Alphabet had more than 70 offices in over 200 cities throughout 50 around the globe, including Germany, Czechia, Finland, Canada, Mexico, Turkey, and New Zealand. The company’s headquarters, also known as “the Googleplex,” are located in Mountain View, California, while other office locations in American states include New York, Georgia, Texas, Washington D.C., and Massachusetts. As Alphabet, the company employs a total over 182 thousand full-time staff, in addition to many other temporary and internship positions. Per the most recent diversity report published in July 2021, most Google employees were male and only 34 percent were female – a figure that has barely changed since the company started reporting on the diversity of its employees in 2016. Furthermore, as of 2021, women occupied only 28.1 percent of leadership positions and 24.6 percent of tech positions. Although Google has regularly stated that the company is committed to promoting ethnic diversity among its personnel, some 54.4 percent of its U.S. employees are White and only 3.3 percent of employees are Black.

As of January 2024, the majority of Google employees worldwide, almost 66 percent, were male. The distribution of male and female employees at Google hasn’t seen a big change over the recent years. In 2014 the share of female employees at Google was 30.6 percent. In 2021 this number has increased by only 3 percent. Considering that the total number of Google employees increased greatly between the years 2007 and 2020, the female quota among the employees had seen rather a small increase. Google as a company Google is a diverse internet company that provides a wide range of digital products and services. In 2022, the company’s global revenue was over 279 billion U.S. dollars. Most of its revenue, around 305 billion U.S. dollars, was from advertising. Among its services, the most popular ones are YouTube and Google Play. Male and female employees at tech companies Google is not the only tech company with a lower number of female employees. This pattern can be seen in other big tech companies too. In 2019, in a ranking of 20 leading tech companies worldwide, only 23andMe had more than a 50 percent share of female employees. The majority of tech companies in the ranking have far more male than female employees.

In 2023, Amazon.com was the top-ranked internet company based on number of employees. The e-commerce giant reported a workforce of more than **** million employees. Amazon has consistently topped the ranking as the online company with the biggest workforce, but the global COVID-19 pandemic has widened the gap as e-commerce has boomed since. During the same period, Meta (formerly Facebook Inc.) had a total of ****** full-time employees. Additionally, Google's parent company Alphabet had ******* full-time workers in 2024.

As of 2024, 7.5 percent of U.S. Google employees were of Hispanic or Latinx ethnicity. The biggest share of Google employees were white. Currently, more than four in ten Google employees were white, down from more than six in ten in 2014.

In 2024, 4.3 percent of U.S. Google leadership employees were of Latinx ethnicity. The majority of leadership employees, about six in ten, were white. Asian Google employees accounted for the second-largest group of employees in leadership positions.

In 2024, the number of IKEA co-workers worldwide amounted to *******. This is an increase of around ****** staff members compared to 2013. IKEA IKEA is an internationally known home furnishing retailer. It has grown rapidly since it was founded in 1943. Today it is the world's largest furniture retailer, recognized for its Scandinavian style. The majority of IKEA's furniture is flat-pack, ready to be assembled by the consumer. This approach allows for a reduction in costs and packaging. One of the key competitive advantages IKEA has is its extensive knowledge about the customers. The company understands the purchasing factors that influence customers to buy and implements the best practices to induce that decision. Low prices are the cornerstone of the IKEA business idea and the company always tries to do things as efficiently and cost-effective as possible. To drive costs down all the time, the company must find new and innovative ways to do that and to incorporate them in its business model. The business’ innovations include new materials that contribute more to a sustainable environment and are less costly or using the newest ways of packaging, handling and transporting materials. Brand value and store visits According to Millward Brown Optimor's "Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2023", IKEA was not only the most valuable furniture retailer brand in the world, it was also the seventh most valuable retailer in the world, valued at almost ** billion U.S. dollars. The furniture business operates more than *** stores and is present in the major world markets. Additionally, there were about 900 million customers visits to IKEA stores in the fiscal year of 2024, compared to *** million in 2023.

In 2024, Spotify employed an average of 7,691 people worldwide, down from 9,123 in the previous year. However, this number remains significantly higher than the 311 employees recorded in 2011. Spotify also made headlines in 2022 and 2023 for letting go a large share of its workforce as part of major restructuring efforts. Spotify and digital music Starting out as a Sweden-based startup, Spotify has evolved into a strong player in the digital content subscription market. The music streaming service was publicly launched in 2008 and has gone on to become a company with more than 15.67 billion euros in annual revenue. Spotify legally provides content from record labels including EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner Music Group. The basic version of the service is free and higher tiers of paid subscription feature no ads and access on mobile devices. Although available as a stand-alone service, Spotify made its U.S. debut in July 2011 as a Facebook application and has since included heavily integrated social features like shared tracks and messaging between users. As of third quarter of 2024, Spotify had 252 million premium subscribers worldwide, significantly up from 10 million in May 2014. In June 2023, the most downloaded music and audio app on the Google Play Store was Spotify. Digital music revenue continues to decline While Spotify has emerged as a dominant player in the music streaming industry, traditional digital music sales have seen a steady decline. Global digital music revenues dropped to 0.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, down from 2.6 billion in 2017, as consumers increasingly opt for subscription-based streaming over individual downloads. With the continued decline of physical music sales, streaming services like Spotify have become the primary driver of digital music revenue, highlighting the growing importance of accessible, on-demand music platforms.

How many employees does Microsoft have? The American technology company Microsoft employs approximately ******* people in full-time positions worldwide. Around ** percent of Microsoft’s employees are located in the company’s home country the United States. The employees are spread out over four business units: operations (manufacturing, distribution, product support, and consulting services), research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administration. Product portfolio and business segmentsMicrosoft sells a wide range of consumer and enterprise software, hardware, and services. The technology company had a revenue standing at around *** billion U.S. dollars in fiscal year 2024, most of which came from the commercial licensing of its software and operating systems. For example, Microsoft Windows is a dominating presence in the desktop operating systems market, with a market share of around ** percent. Microsoft U.S. tech giant Microsoft is one of the biggest technology companies in the United States next to Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and IBM. Microsoft’s market capitalization has consistently grown to over three trillion U.S. dollars over the period from 2014 to 2024. Today Microsoft is one of the most valuable brands worldwide with a brand value close to *** trillion U.S. dollars, with only Apple having a higher brand value. The fiscal year-end of the company is June, 30th.

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 2024, Apple generated the highest revenue per employee amongst the leading tech companies (by market capitalization) with **** million U.S. dollars. Meta and NVIDIA were the only other companies with revenues per employee exceeding *** million U.S. dollars.

As of January 2024, several major technology companies, including Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple, have implemented return-to-office mandates requiring employees to be in the office at least ***** days per week. Interestingly, Zoom, a company that played a significant role in facilitating work-from-home activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, has announced a return-to-office mandate of its own requiring employees to work from the office ***** per week. In contrast, X (formerly Twitter) adopted an office-only policy for their employees since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, requiring all X employees to work from the office the entire work week.

The tech industry had a rough start to 2024. Technology companies worldwide saw a significant reduction in their workforce in the first quarter of 2024, with over ** thousand employees being laid off. By the second quarter, layoffs impacted more than ** thousand tech employees. In the final quarter of the year around ** thousand employees were laid off. Layoffs impacting all global tech giants Layoffs in the global market escalated dramatically in the first quarter of 2023, when the sector saw a staggering record high of ***** thousand employees losing their jobs. Major tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and IBM all contributed to this figure during this quarter. Amazon, in particular, conducted the most rounds of layoffs with the highest number of employees laid off among global tech giants. Industries most affected include the consumer, hardware, food, and healthcare sectors. Notable companies that have laid off a significant number of staff include Flink, Booking.com, Uber, PayPal, LinkedIn, and Peloton, among others. Overhiring led the trend, but will AI keep it going? Layoffs in the technology sector started following an overhiring spree during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, companies expanded their workforce to meet increased demand for digital services during lockdowns. However, as lockdowns ended, economic uncertainties persisted and companies reevaluated their strategies, layoffs became inevitable, resulting in a record number of *** thousand laid off employees in the global tech sector by the end of 2022. Moreover, it is still unclear how advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) will impact layoff trends in the tech sector. AI-driven automation can replace manual tasks leading to workforce redundancies. Whether through chatbots handling customer inquiries or predictive algorithms optimizing supply chains, the pursuit of efficiency and cost savings may result in more tech industry layoffs in the future.

In the second quarter of 2025, Google's revenue amounted to over 95.94 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 84.377 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.

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.

With a market capitalization of 3.12 trillion U.S. dollars as of May 2024, Microsoft was the world’s largest company that year. Rounding out the top five were some of the world’s most recognizable brands: Apple, NVIDIA, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Amazon. Saudi Aramco led the ranking of the world's most profitable companies in 2023, with a pre-tax income of nearly 250 billion U.S. dollars. How are market value and market capitalization determined? Market value and market capitalization are two terms frequently used – and confused - when discussing the profitability and viability of companies. Strictly speaking, market capitalization (or market cap) is the worth of a company based on the total value of all their shares; an important metric when determining the comparative value of companies for trading opportunities. Accordingly, many stock exchanges such as the New York or London Stock Exchange release market capitalization data on their listed companies. On the other hand, market value technically refers to what a company is worth in a much broader context. It is determined by multiple factors, including profitability, corporate debt, and the market environment as a whole. In this sense it aims to estimate the overall value of a company, with share price only being one element. Market value is therefore useful for determining whether a company’s shares are over- or undervalued, and in arriving at a price if the company is to be sold. Such valuations are generally made on a case-by-case basis though, and not regularly reported. For this reason, market capitalization is often reported as market value. What are the top companies in the world? The answer to this question depends on the metric used. Although the largest company by market capitalization, Microsoft's global revenue did not manage to crack the top 20 companies. Rather, American multinational retailer Walmart was ranked as the largest company in the world by revenue. Walmart also had the highest number of employees in the world.

How many apps are there in the Play Store? The number of available apps in the Google Play Store was most recently placed at 1.68 million apps, after surpassing 1 million apps in July 2013. Google Play Store Google Play was originally launched in October 2008 under the name Android Market. As Google’s official app store, it offers its customers a wide range of applications and digital media including music, magazines, books, film, and TV. As of April 2021, the ranking of the top-grossing Android apps worldwide is dominated by mobile games with Coin Master, Garena Free Fire, and PUBG mobile leading the ranking. This hardly comes as a surprise as it is estimated that gaming apps will account for over 70 percent of Google Play app revenues in 2024. As most apps in the Google Play Store are available for free, the company needs to utilize effective business models to secure healthy revenue. How do apps make money? Despite the robust gaming app revenues, most gaming apps are free to download and rely on monetization via in-app advertising or in-game purchases of items such as boosters and accessories. A November 2021 survey of mobile app publishers found that video ads were the most popular mobile app monetization model, followed by display ads and in-app purchases. Additionally, monetizing via subscriptions has proven an effective model for several highly popular apps, with subscription revenues hitting 18.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenues in 2021.

As of January 2024, the tech startup with the most layoffs was Amazon, with over 27 thousand layoffs, across five separate rounds of layoffs. It was followed by Meta and Google with around 21 thousand and 12 thousand job cuts announced respectively.

Layoffs in in the technology industry

Overall, layoffs across all industries began in 2020 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with tech layoffs increasing in 2022. In the first quarter of 2023 alone, more than 167 thousand employees had been fired worldwide, a record number of job cuts in a single quarter and more than all of the layoffs announced in 2022 combined, marking a harsh start to of 2023 for the tech sector. From retail to finance and education, all sectors are suffering from this widespread downsizing. However, retail tech startups were hit the most, with almost 29 thousand layoffs announced as of September 2023. Most job losses happened in the United States, where tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Google are based.

Reasons behind increasing tech layoffs

Layoffs in the technology sector started with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when entire cities were in lockdown and mobility was restricted. Although restrictions loosened up in 2021, events such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the downturn in Chinese production, and rising inflation had a significant impact on the tech industry and continue to represent major concerns for tech companies. As a consequence, companies across the world have yet to overcome all economic challenges, examples of which are rising material and labor costs, as well as decreasing profit margins. To address such difficulties, tech companies have appointed business plans. For instance, in the United States, tech firms planned to focus more on consumer retention, automating software, and cutting operating expenses.

In 2023, Google Cloud revenue amounted to 43.22 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for over 10 percent of Google's total revenues. The company's Cloud segment primarily generates revenue through the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which offers a suite of cloud computing services running on Google infrastructure. Competition on the cloud In recent years, GCP has seen tremendous growth with increasing demand for cloud computing to keep pace with digital transformation. The development is fueled by the increasing demand for cloud-based services, dependency on cloud infrastructure for scalability, and the growing popularity of microservices. Tough competition from the largest cloud providers Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services has forced all cloud providers to continually innovate and offer new services to gain or retain existing customers. AI on the cloud The growing demand for new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) will further fuel the demand for cloud infrastructure. AI development, deployment, and management for various applications are more straightforward on the cloud, with the availability of tools for data storage, data processing, and easy integration of machine learning in AI models. One of the critical factors that would drive the development of AI on the cloud is the providers' offer of a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Google’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by ****percent year-on-year in 2024, to ***** million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO₂e). That year, Google’s carbon intensity was approximately *****tCO₂e per unit of revenue. Google’s emissions surge In 2024, Google’s "ambition-based" GHG emissions increased ** percent relative to 2019, the base year for the tech giant’s goal of reaching net zero. The main reason for these rising emissions has been soaring energy demands at Google’s data centers, which are primarily being driven by the company’s expanding artificial intelligence (AI) services. AI requires considerable amounts of energy for computation and data storage. Google’s climate targets at risk Google has set the target of reaching net zero emissions across all its operations and value chain by 2030. This includes slashing Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by ** percent from the 2019 base year. But with the company’s emissions currently rising and energy demand from its AI services set to grow further, these targets are being put at risk. One way in which Google is aiming to address its rising emissions is to move toward purchasing high-quality carbon removal credits.

In 2024, Meta Platforms generated a revenue of over 164 billion U.S. dollars, up from 134 billion USD in 2023. The majority of Meta’s profits come from its advertising revenue.Meta’s total Family of Apps revenue for 2022 amounted to 114 billion U.S. dollars. Additionally, Meta’s Reality Labs, the company’s VR division, generated around 2.1 billion dollars. Meta’s marketing expenditure for 2022 amounted to just over 15 billion U.S. dollars, up from 14 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year. Increasing audience base despite privacy misgivings Meta’s user numbers have continued to grow steadily throughout past years. In the fourth quarter of 2022, there was a total of 3.74 billion worldwide users across all of Meta’s platforms. For this same time frame, the company recorded 407 million monthly active users across Europe. Downloads of Meta’s app Oculus, for which virtual reality headsets are required, increased greatly from 2020 to 2021, reaching a total of 10.62 million downloads by the end of last year. Up until 2021, downloads had grown in a steady manner but from 2020 to 2021, they more than doubled.User numbers have increased despite data security issues and past controversy such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. There remains skepticism surrounding the idea of the metaverse in which Meta aims to immerse itself. Of surveyed adults in the United States, the majority said that they were concerned about their privacy if Meta were to succeed in creating the metaverse.