Alphabet changed its name from Google Inc. to Alphabet Inc. in 2015 while retaining the GOOG and GOOGL stock symbols.
Google announced the Alphabet restructuring in August 2015, and the corporate reorganization took effect in October of that year. Alphabet became the parent company, while Google remained its largest subsidiary and continued operating its core search, advertising, YouTube, Android, and cloud businesses.
The change separated Google’s main internet products from businesses such as Waymo, Verily, and other “Other Bets.” It was designed to give investors and managers clearer visibility into different parts of the enterprise. Google’s existing stock structure continued under Alphabet, including Class A shares with voting rights and Class C shares without them.
Alphabet is among the world’s most valuable public companies because of Google’s dominant search advertising business. Its market capitalization changes daily with the prices of its publicly traded shares.