Google’s Acquisition Spree

Google Inc. was founded on September 4, 1998 as a private company and is now one of the leading multinational tech company.  It went public in 2004 and remained independent for 17 years. With the recent re-structuring, Google became a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., which now owns most of the parts. Google has been providing a number of services, from Gmail to Android, Google Earth to Google Docs, Google Drive to web browser Google Chrome and what not. 

Google Inc. was founded on September 4, 1998 as a private company and is now one of the leading multinational tech company.  It went public in 2004 and remained independent for 17 years. With the recent re-structuring, Google became a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., which now owns most of the parts. Google has been providing a number of services, from Gmail to Android, Google Earth to Google Docs, Google Drive to web browser Google Chrome and what not. 

There is a history of partnerships and acquisitions which has made Google a truly successful technology company. Using the list of all Google acquired companies and kpi dashboard tool we illustrate Google’s acquisition journey.

A To Z List Of Companies Acquired By Google [Now Alphabet]

We extracted the first letter of every acquired company and plotted them as a simple bar chart. Google indeed has acquired A-Z companies.

 [click to see list of all companies]

Google acquires companies in order to fill gaps in the product line or merge/integrate with their existing product lines.

Let see which companies have been integrated into multiple products and which products have consumed more than one acquired companies/products.

Starting with the largest acquisition

Acquisition of Motorola Mobility

 
The below sankey diagram maps out the complete picture of all the acquired companies and which products/services they have been integrated within Google.

 [click to see interactive version]

Another interactive Circle pack viz showing the number of acquisitions by year and the business category

Top list of acquisitions [based on publicly known figures]

Since 2001, Google has acquired over 180 companies, that’s almost one company per month. It spent $17 billion in last two years only while its top 5 rivals spent $13 billion combined during the same period.

 Google Inc. has spent more than $24.5 billion on its Top 10 acquisitions alone. It has spent more on acquisitions than its top 5 rivals namely, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Yahoo combined.

Here we are going to discuss  Top 3  purchases made by Google Inc.

Motorola Mobility, a mobile device manufacturing company  is the largest acquisition made by Google Inc. till date worth $12.5 billion in 2001. Main reason behind the acquisition was its patents.

NestLabs, producers of smart thermostats and smoke detectors comes second. Google bought it for $3.2 billion in 2014 as it wants to expand its presence in consumer homes.

DoubleClick, internet ad serving service provider is the third biggest acquisition made by Google in 2007 costing $3.1 billion. Reason behind it was to make a prominent presence in the online advertising world.

According to Quarter 2 2015 Results, Google Inc. showed Revenues of $17.7 billion. Whilst its growth revenue being 11% year over year. It also reflected a constant growth in wide range of its products particularly search and mobile businesses. With a strong operating cash flow of $7.0 billion, seems like Google will continue its buying spree in the future.