Google marks 10th anniversary as a public company

Google listed on New York’s Nasdaq on 19 August 2004

Google became a publicly traded company on 19 Aug. 2004 (GETTY IMAGES)

Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a public company, with the search engine giant worth almost 15 times more than on its stock market debut in 2004

Google listed on New York’s Nasdaq on August 19 2004, with its shares jumping 18 per cent on the first day of trading to value it at $27.2 billion (£16.3 billion).

Since then its value has soared to $391.36 billion, making it one of the world’s largest companies. Last year it made a profit of $12.9 billion on £59.82 billion of revenue, with around a 10th of its turnover coming from the UK. Google has faced criticism here for paying fractional taxes compared with revenues.

In the 10 years since going public the California-headquartered company has expanded from its traditional search business into areas as diverse as driverless cars, healthcare and wearable tech such as Google Glass.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin retain control of Google, holding around 55 per cent of total shares. The pair cemented their control in April by carrying out a two-for-one shares split that issued investors with a new Class C share with no voting rights.