Who Owns the Most Google Stock? 10 Largest GOOGL & GOOG Shareholders in 2024

Alphabet, the owner of Google, has seen its stock price soar over the past 12 months on the back of strong quarterly results.

Shares of the tech giant, a member of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ group of mega-cap US growth companies, have risen 46% to $150 in the year to March 27, 2024.

But do analysts believe the stock price will continue to rise, and who are the largest shareholders that would benefit from further increases?

In our analysis of who owns the most Google stock, we reveal who owns Alphabet and look at GOOG vs GOOGL stock.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. All Things Alphabet: Products, Market Cap, and Share Price
3. Who Owns Alphabet Shares? Google Shareholder Analysis
4. Who Owns the Most Shares of Google in 2024?
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. All Things Alphabet: Products, Market Cap, and Share Price
3. Who Owns Alphabet Shares? Google Shareholder Analysis
Show Full Guide
4. Who Owns the Most Shares of Google in 2024?
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

All Things Alphabet: Products, Market Cap, and Share Price

Let’s start by looking at who owns Google.

Alphabet is the Google parent company. It was created by a 2015 corporate restructuring of Google, which had originally gone public back in 2004.

Although Google still delivers the vast majority of revenue and profit, several smaller companies are coming under the Alphabet umbrella.

These emerging businesses, which are at various stages of their development, are independent operations and are known collectively as ‘other bets.’

Overall, Alphabet achieved revenue of $307 billion in the year ending December 31, 2023, which was a 9% increase over the previous year’s $282.8 billion.

GOOGL stock is rated a ‘moderate buy,’ according to the opinions of 32 Wall Street analysts compiled by MarketBeat to March 27, 2024. Twenty-six have ‘buy’ recommendations in place for the Google owners, and one sees it as a ‘strong buy,’ while five have it down as a ‘hold.’

Their consensus forecast is for the stock to rise 3.69% to $155.48 over the coming year, although opinions are divided. Whereas the highest forecast is for the stock to hit $180, the lowest sees the price tumbling to $130. This would represent a $12 drop from the $151 closing price on March 26, 2024.

Note that past performance is not indicative of future results.

Who Owns Alphabet Shares? Google Shareholder Analysis

So, who owns Alphabet? Several institutions and individuals are on the list of top Google shareholders.

Ownership Structure

But what is the difference between GOOG and GOOGL? Alphabet has three classes of stock: Class A, Class B, and Class C.

Class A shares are voting shares with one vote per share, which investors can exercise at shareholder meetings. Class C shares do not have any voting rights.

On the other hand, Class B shares are only for insiders and come with 10 votes per share. They are also not traded publicly and as such, do not have a ticker symbol.

In this case, insiders refer to the company’s co-founders, directors, and other senior managers, as well as other entities who may hold 10% or more of the company.

The two listed classes are A and C. While A uses the ticker GOOGL, C can be found under GOOG.

According to Alphabet’s annual report, there were approximately 7,305 and 1,757 stockholders of Class A stock and Class C stock, respectively, as well as 59 of Class B, at the end of 2023.

Who Owns the Most Shares of Google in 2024?

Coming to Google owners, Alphabet shareholders are spread out between massive institutional investors as well as individual shareholders.

Google ownership includes some of the most well-known asset management companies in the world. These organizations have trillions of dollars under management.

Top 5 Largest Institutional Shareholders

Vanguard Group – 904,799,079 – 7.28%

Vanguard is the world’s second-largest asset management firm and a leading provider of so-called passive investment strategies. It also heads the list of largest Google shareholders.

The late Jack Bogle, Vanguard’s founder, is credited with helping to bring the concept of index tracking to the public and providing them with a cheaper way to invest.

The company, which was established in 1975, had around $8.2 trillion in assets under management as of July 2023, according to ADV Ratings.

BlackRock – 770,420,817 – 6.20%

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with $10 trillion in total assets under management at the end of 2023, according to ADV Ratings.

The New York-based company, which is second on the list of Google shareholders, was founded back in the late 1980s and employs thousands of people in almost 40 countries.

It provides a range of services to institutional, intermediary and retail clients, including rigorous fundamental and quantitative active management approaches.

State Street Corp – 413,134,392 – 3.32%

State Street is a global financial services firm. One of its divisions, State Street Global Advisors Inc., is the world’s fourth-largest investment manager.

It provides investment, advisory, and trading services to clients, and it has around $3.8 trillion in assets under management, according to ADV Ratings.

FMR LLC – 344,140,631 – 2.77%

Fidelity Investments is one of the world’s largest asset managers and almost 50 million individual investors, according to ADV Ratings.

FMR LLC is the US parent company of the multinational group and a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning and portfolio guidance.

Geode Capital Management – 225,660,182 – 1.82%

The asset manager was founded in 2001 and has $1.15 trillion assets under management, according to its website.

It uses a team-based approach across each of the firm’s investment disciplines, emphasizing a “repeatable, risk-managed and collaborative” investment process.

Top 5 Largest Google Individual Shareholders

As far as the list of individual Google investors is concerned, it contains past and current executives, as well as long-term investors.

Larry Page – 389,051,160 – 3.12%

He co-founded Google with Sergey Brin back in the late 1990s and was chief executive before announcing at the end of 2019 that he was stepping down.

Larry remains a board member and is at number nine on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of March 27, 2024, with a wealth estimated at $136 billion.

He has 389,051,160 of Class A Google stock, according to SEC filings.

Sergey Brin – 363,474,028 – 2.92%

Google’s co-founder is at number 10 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a wealth of $130 billion.

He served as president of the company until stepping down at the same time as Larry Page at the end of 2019. He remains a board member.

He has 363,474,028 of Class A stock, according to SEC filings to December 31, 2023.

Eric E. Schmidt – 115,109,788 – 0.92%

The US businessman served as chief executive of Google from 2001 to 2011 and then as executive chairman up until 2015.

He helped transform Google from a Silicon Valley startup to a global technological leader and one of the century’s business success stories.

He owns 60,994,606 Class A stock and 54,115,182 Class B, according to SEC filings on 31 December 2023.

John Doerr – 25,260,820 – 0.2%

The investor, who is chairman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, was one of the original investors in Google back in the late 1990s.

He has 2,911,880 Class A shares of Alphabet and 22,348,940 Class B stock, according to the company’s 2023 proxy document.

Sundar Pichai – 227,560 – 0.001%

Alphabet’s chief executive joined Google in 2004 as head of product management and development and has risen through the ranks.

A highly respected visionary, he was previously linked to roles with Twitter and Microsoft but was named Alphabet’s CEO in December 2019.

He has 227,560 class A shares, according to SEC filings as of 20 March 2024.

Who Founded Google?

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, computer science degree classmates at Stanford University in Stanford, California, founded Google in 1998.

The company kicked off as a research project back in 1996 when the co-founders were Ph.D. students. It also had a little-recognized third founder, Scott Hassan, who created much of the initial Google code but left before the company was formally incorporated.

The company, initially dubbed BackRub, started off by receiving $100,000 in funding in August 1998 from the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Andy Bechtolsheim.

Role of Institutional Investors

Institutional investors collect money from several parties, to invest it across a range of assets and maximize their gains. By involving several clients in this fund collection process, institutional investors have the advantage of capital volume, which can open access to several investments and give them a significant stake in top companies.

Institutional investors also help maintain corporate governance, reporting, and transparency standards in several companies they have a stake in.

They can voice their opinions more assertively due to their shareholdings, resulting in a better chance of influencing the direction and decision-making of certain companies.

Due to their significant holdings in various financial assets, institutional investors substantially impact the stock market. As such, private and smaller investors usually tend to mimic institutional investors’ actions when it comes to buying or selling a particular stock.

Hedge funds, asset managers, and mutual funds are all examples of institutional investors.

The Bottom Line

Google is one of the world’s most well-known and influential companies, at par with other Big Tech giants such as Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL). A global business giant is currently the fifth largest in the world, according to Companies Market Cap.

That makes it unsurprising that so many major institutional investors want to put money into the stock.

Google is owned by numerous individual and institutional shareholders, including Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Sundar Pichai, the Vanguard Group, and BlackRock.

FAQs