Alphabet became the fourth U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization, crossing the threshold in January 2020.
Alphabet’s market value passed $1 trillion on January 16, 2020. Alphabet is the parent company of Google, whose search engine, online advertising systems, YouTube, and cloud-computing business drive most of the group’s economic activity.
Alphabet was created in 2015 as part of a corporate restructuring. Google became a subsidiary, while Alphabet provided a broader structure for Google and other businesses, including long-term projects grouped under the company’s “Other Bets” segment.
The milestone is sometimes incorrectly attributed to Google as a separate listed company. Google’s shares are publicly traded, but the listed corporate entity is Alphabet, whose stock classes carry the tickers GOOGL and GOOG.