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Comment by MarkMc | Hacker News Reader

26% revenue growth for such a large company is astounding. Google's growth machine seems to have lasted much longer than people expected.

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26% is a crazy high growth rate for a company with 89,000 employees.

Even more amazing is that it's actually accelerating:

Q2 2018 vs. 2017 +26%

Q2 2017 vs. 2016 +21%

Q2 2016 vs. 2015 +21%

Q2 2015 vs. 2014 +11%

Q2 2014 vs. 2013 +21%

Q2 2013 vs. 2012 +11%

I don't think I've ever seen this with another big company.

Truly astounding.

I guess maybe the restructuring from Google to Alphabet worked. The idea was based on Berkshire Hathaway, another company with unusual growth. (http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2017ltr.pdf)

that seems like a strange conclusion, since a huge majority of the revenue and growth is still coming from Google.

I think one of the advantages of that structure is the head of Google now just focuses on Google instead of trying to think about a dozen other businesses as well.

Indeed, focus is a great thing. Although weirdly enough, Android is still part of Google as well; you'd think that'd be a prime candidate to move alongside Google as its own venture.

The idea may be that android benefits a lot more from integration with other google products. Although I'm not sure on how inter-alphabet cooperation is going.

I wonder what's the idea behind google growth ... maybe android apps improvements got them more visits/ads

Patrick Pichette always had a saying internally that 20% is the magic number. If you can keep growing 20% YoY, investors will let you do whatever you want.

I fear the times when they can't achieve those 20% and the winds start to change massively.

I think a big part of it is how over the past few years, the internet has truly gone mainstream in a way that it hadn't prior, namely the ad spend online, is starting to catch up with the time spent online as compared to other platforms such as TV, print, ect.

I believe 2017 was the year online ad spending passed television.

A quick search, using these terms: digital ad spend surpasses tv, shows multiple sources confirm my belief.

Yep, and they are doing their thing in new territories, with their stronghold (ad) still going up, and technology changing allows for even further opportunities there (voice, home, and so on).

Ad delivery still has some optimising opportunities, so still grow to be had there. Better ad placement means more valuable ads.

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