Alphabet became the fourth U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization in January 2020.
Alphabet crossed the threshold on January 16, 2020. It joined Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft among U.S. companies that had reached the landmark valuation. Alphabet’s share price rose as investors continued to value Google’s dominant internet businesses and its expanding technology investments.
Alphabet is the parent company created in 2015 during a corporate restructuring of Google. Google remains its best-known business, with major operations in search, online advertising, YouTube, and Android.
Alphabet is sometimes called Google in market-cap comparisons, but the listed company is Alphabet Inc. The distinction matters because Alphabet, rather than Google as a separate public company, issues the publicly traded shares used in the valuation.