"One-trick pony": How Google earns money
The list of Google services is getting longer and longer—but when it comes to revenue, the internet giant is far less diversified: Google earns almost all of its money from advertising.
Google Search, G-Mail, Google Maps, Google Drive online storage, the Android smartphone operating system with the Google Play app store and, and, and: The list of Google services is growing from year to year. And in its secret labs, the company is working on other products such as a self-driving car or hot-air balloons to provide remote areas with Internet access.
But when it comes to making money in the high-tech circus, Google is more or less just a "one-trick pony", a circus horse that can only do one trick: advertising. Online advertising accounted for 31.5 billion of the almost 35 billion dollar turnover in the first half of this year. That is a 90 percent share. The majority of advertising revenue (24.3 billion dollars) was generated by Google on its own sites, the rest (around 7.2 billion dollars) on websites of business partners. The Google balance sheet only lists one other revenue segment with the rather meaningless title "Other". According to experts, this turnover of around 3.4 billion dollars in the past six months, which Google does not break down further, is primarily due to the fees from the Play Store that Google charges developers of Android apps and entertainment providers. In order to free itself from its dependence on advertising revenue, Google has repeatedly launched initiatives in recent years, such as the provision of paid cloud services. (SDA)
