Google Continues Its Seemingly Impossible Growth Streak

The sheer scale of Google’s operations continues to boggle the minds of Android app developers. Nobody thinks of the behemoth as just a search engine anymore — even the most tech illiterate among us know that the company’s vast operations extend into every facet of tech imaginable: mobile, research, life sciences, investment, and beyond. Google is inspiring to many in the tech world in an abstract way, but it’s almost impossible for a guy with a startup dream to aspire to Google’s level of ubiquity and ambition without seeming like a madman.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, just released its second-quarter numbers, and they show a company still surging in growth. Overall, Alphabet’s revenues grew 21% to a staggering $26 billion, with the revenues of just Google also increasing by 21% year over year to $25.8 billion.

Most of that figure comes from advertising dollars, of course. As Android app developers know, Google is the world’s top advertiser. After taking traffic acquisition costs into consideration, the company is expected to make $73.8 billion in net digital ad sales this year. That’s roughly a third of the $223.7 billion total of worldwide digital ad revenues in 2017.

Part of Google’s success is that it has adapted to the times. Miami Android app developers are undoubtedly aware that the majority of digital ad revenues now come from mobile ads. In 2016, Google made $38 billion from mobile advertising. This year, the company will make close to $50 billion — that’s 67% of its digital ad revenues.

The rest of Alphabet’s business is on the rise too. All the company’s non-advertising revenues have increased 42%, and now its “other” pursuits make up 12% of the business. This success is driven in large part by the continuing growth of Google’s cloud services and the Google Play app store (so Android app developers have done their part in helping Google grow).

Alphabet now employs nearly double the people that it did in 2013, with more than 75,000 workers experimenting and toiling away. At this point, it looks as if the Alphabet/Google juggernaut is unstoppable.