If You Invested $1,000 In Google Stock At IPO, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998, Google went from a search engine to a technology conglomerate over the years. The company now known as Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL is one of the largest companies in the world.

Here’s a look at how the stock has performed since its IPO.

What Happened: In 2003, Google was named the fastest growing technology company. Revenue at the company had grown over 437,000% in five years to nearly $1 billion. The company held its IPO in 2004 to offer investors a way to bet on the future success of the company.

Google held its IPO on August 19, 2004. The company priced shares at $85 each, down from an original range of $108 to $135 and at the low end of a revised range of $85 to $95. The IPO gave Google a valuation of $23 billion.

Shares of the company were up 18% on the first day of trading and over the years would be one of the best performing stocks.

The company has remained a giant in the search engine market and also transformed into mobile phones, video, gaming and other sectors through acquisitions and new product launches.

In 2015, Google changed its name to Alphabet, undergoing a rebranding to help focus on being more than just a search business.

Page called Alphabet a “collection of companies” at the time.

“We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations and is the core of how we index with Google search!” Page said.

In 2020, Google became the fourth publicly traded U.S. company to hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion. The company is now valued at $1.4 trillion.

Here’s a look at how shares have performed since the IPO and how much those original shares would be worth now.

Related Link: Alphabet Q4 Earnings Highlights 

Investing $1,000 in Google Stock: Google shares priced at $85 on August 19, 2004. The shares were offered via auction, which may have hurt the initial demand and value. Those lucky enough to get an allocation of shares have been pleasantly rewarded.

A $1,000 investment could have purchased 11.76 shares of Google stock in the IPO. Google underwent stocks splits of 2-for-1 in 2014 and 20-for-1 in 2022.

The 11.76 shares would now be a total of 470.4 shares after the stock splits.

The $1,000 investment would be worth $1,164,133.88 today based on a current share price of $105.22 at the time of writing.

Google shares have posted an incredible 116,313% return since going public, rewarding investors along the way and potentially turning them into millionaires as shown above.

In comparison, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, which follows the S&P 500 Index, is up 375.5% over the same time period.

Not every stock is going to be a huge winner or post astronomical returns like those of Google/Alphabet since going public.

The company was a market leader and had posted huge revenue growth at the time of its public offering, two factors that may have been signs to investors of a stock with strong potential.

With Google as an example, it’s also important to follow the progress a company is making in diversification and through acquisition to expand to new areas once growth has declined or competitors have emerged in its key business area.

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