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 first quarter of 2025, Google's revenue amounted to over 89.52 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 79.97 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.

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.

Google’s energy consumption has increased over the last few years, reaching 25.9 terawatt hours in 2023, up from 12.8 terawatt hours in 2019. The company has made efforts to make its data centers more efficient through customized high-performance servers, using smart temperature and lighting, advanced cooling techniques, and machine learning. Datacenters and energy Through its operations, Google pursues a more sustainable impact on the environment by creating efficient data centers that use less energy than the average, transitioning towards renewable energy, creating sustainable workplaces, and providing its users with the technological means towards a cleaner future for the future generations. Through its efficient data centers, Google has also managed to divert waste from its operations away from landfills. Reducing Google’s carbon footprint Google’s clean energy efforts is also related to their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. Since their commitment to using 100 percent renewable energy, the company has met their targets largely through solar and wind energy power purchase agreements and buying renewable power from utilities. Google is one of the largest corporate purchasers of renewable energy in the world.

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.

As of April 2024, it was found that men between the ages of 25 and 34 years made up Facebook largest audience, accounting for 18.4 percent of global users. Additionally, Facebook's second largest audience base could be found with men aged 18 to 24 years.

              Facebook connects the world

              Founded in 2004 and going public in 2012, Facebook is one of the biggest internet companies in the world with influence that goes beyond social media. It is widely considered as one of the Big Four tech companies, along with Google, Apple, and Amazon (all together known under the acronym GAFA). Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide and the company also owns three other billion-user properties: mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger,
              as well as photo-sharing app Instagram. Facebook usersThe vast majority of Facebook users connect to the social network via mobile devices. This is unsurprising, as Facebook has many users in mobile-first online markets. Currently, India ranks first in terms of Facebook audience size with 378 million users. The United States, Brazil, and Indonesia also all have more than 100 million Facebook users each.

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.

In the first quarter of 2025, revenues of Amazon Web Services (AWS) rose to 17 percent, a decrease from the previous three quarters. AWS is one of Amazon’s strongest revenue segments, generating over 115 billion U.S. dollars in 2024 net sales, up from 105 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides on-demand cloud platforms and APIs through a pay-as-you-go-model to customers. AWS launched in 2002 providing general services and tools and produced its first cloud products in 2006. Today, more than 175 different cloud services for a variety of technologies and industries are released already. AWS ranks as one of the most popular public cloud infrastructure and platform services running applications worldwide in 2020, ahead of Microsoft Azure and Google cloud services. Cloud computing Cloud computing is essentially the delivery of online computing services to customers. As enterprises continually migrate their applications and data to the cloud instead of storing it on local machines, it becomes possible to access resources from different locations. Some of the key services of the AWS ecosystem for cloud applications include storage, database, security tools, and management tools. AWS is among the most popular cloud providers Some of the largest globally operating enterprises use AWS for their cloud services, including Netflix, BBC, and Baidu. Accordingly, AWS is one of the leading cloud providers in the global cloud market. Due to its continuously expanding portfolio of services and deepening of expertise, the company continues to be not only an important cloud service provider but also a business partner.

In the third quarter of financial year 2025, Microsoft Azure revenue growth stood at ** percent. Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing service that is used for creating a variety of scalable solutions for different use-cases. Azure's biggest competitors are Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud. Microsoft Azure revenue Microsoft does not publish exact details of revenue derived from Azure. Instead, revenues from Azure are integrated in its intelligent cloud segment, which consists of public, private, and hybrid server products and cloud services. In 2021, the intelligent cloud segment generated revenues of over ** billion U.S. dollars, with Azure driving up server products and cloud services revenues specifically. However, Microsoft’s intelligent cloud also features other high-value products, including consulting services and premier support services. Microsoft Azure products and services Through its Azure platform, Microsoft offers a variety of different cloud computing resources to its customers, including virtual desktop, SQL database, or serverless Kubernetes. In mid-2021, there were a total of almost ****** products and services offered on the Microsoft Azure marketplace, with the majority listed under the IT and management tools category. The market has responded well to Azure's pricing strategy, with nearly a third of all respondents to a global survey of IT professionals rating Azure as providing the best value for money, more than any other provider.

Cryptocurrency payments are forecast to grow at a CAGR of nearly 17 percent between 2023 and 2030, although the market is relatively small. The forecast is according to a market estimate made in early 2023, based on various conditions and sources available at that time. It should be noted, however, that cryptocurrency used for payments is predicted to be a far smaller market than the predicted transaction value of CBDC, or the forecast market size of instant payments. Indeed, research from early 2023 across 40 countries suggested that the market share of cryptocurrency in e-commerce transaction was "less than one percent" in all survey countries, with predictions being this would not change in the future.