Alphabet is the parent organization of Google and became one of the world’s most valuable companies after its 2015 restructuring.
Google announced the creation of Alphabet in August 2015, with the new holding company becoming the publicly traded parent later that year. The restructuring separated Google’s core internet businesses from other projects, including research and technology ventures. Google remained Alphabet’s largest and most important subsidiary.
Alphabet’s market capitalization is therefore not the market value of a separate search engine alone. It represents the value investors assign to the entire corporate group, including Google Search, YouTube, Google Cloud, Android, and other businesses.
The company’s stock is commonly associated with the tickers GOOGL and GOOG. These share classes have different voting rights, but both represent ownership in Alphabet. A frequent mix-up is calling Alphabet “Google”; Google is the principal subsidiary, while Alphabet is the listed parent.