



Google blasts past $4 tn: How is it beating rivals?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: On Monday, Alphabet became the fourth-ever company to hit a market capitalization of $4 trillion, after announcing a deal with iPhone-maker Apple to power the latter’s AI assistant, Siri. In the week leading up to it, Google’s parent also overtook Apple to become the second-largest company in the world.
Alphabet’s growth comes amid warnings of a looming crash in artificial intelligence (AI). Mint explains what’s fuelling its rise. In April last year, Google’s market cap fell to $1.8 trillion, ranking it behind Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.
In May, Google went all-out on AI in search, advertising and video generation. Investors cheered as Google grew at breakneck speed, adding over $2 trillion to its market cap in about six months last year. It also caught up with key rival Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
Going by Sundar Pichai and Altman’s statements, Google Gemini had 650 million users as of 30 September as against OpenAI's ChatGPT’s 800 million. In April, the gap was 3x in ChatGPT’s favour. Google’s share price reflected this, rising from $146 apiece on 30 April to $333 on Monday.
Google’s foundational AI models and a slew of enterprise deals have boosted its growth. In comparison, Microsoft’s Copilot remained flat, data from SensorTower showed last month, thus keeping its valuation flat, too. Meta, meanwhile, stopped chasing leadership through foundational AI models and has, instead, started focusing on AI real-world augmented reality gadgets that have still not found mainstream acceptance.
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