Alphabet is the parent company that owns Google, including the Google search engine.
Google’s founders created Alphabet as a new holding-company structure in 2015. Under the arrangement, Google became a major subsidiary while other businesses and ambitious projects could be reported separately. Alphabet’s core operations include Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, and Google Cloud.
The restructuring also changed the public company’s stock-market identity. Google shareholders received Alphabet shares, and the company’s shares trade primarily on Nasdaq under the symbols GOOG and GOOGL. Alphabet has repeatedly ranked among the world’s richest companies by market capitalization because of Google’s global advertising and cloud businesses.
A common mix-up is to call the listed corporation Google. Google remains the principal operating company and brand, but Alphabet is the legal parent whose market capitalization is usually compared with Apple, Microsoft, and other giants.