Seven products from Google that have reached 1 Billion Active Users

By Ankit

| Updated: Saturday, February 6, 2016, 14:45 [IST]

Google's parent company Alphabet[NASDAQ:GOOG] recently became the world's most valuable private corporation, surpassing Apple Inc. Sundar Pichai-led Google is the essence of Alphabet and the company also recently announced that Gmail or Google Mail became its seventh product to cross one billion users.

If you are wondering what all other products by Google have crossed the massive threshold earlier, here is a list to help you get an estimate of how Google became the world's most valuable as well as influential organization.

#1

Starting with the latest entrant into the list, Gmail or Google Mail initiated as a beta invitation-only webmail program in April 2004. It is and has remained a free webmail service, primarily supported by the AdSense advertising program. The service offers users with around 15GB of free data usage, with options of upgrading it to 30TB via paid methods.

Apart from being the most common mailing service in the world, Gmail also is the first app on the Google Play Store to reach over a billion downloads, a feat accomplished in May of 2014. It is also widely regarded as the most effective webmail provider against spam and other non-work emails. In 2014, Gmail's original interface was succeeded by an optional application called Inbox.

#2

Launched in 2008, the Google Play Store was originally named Android Market with the rebranding taking place in early 2012. It is one of Google's many digital distribution systems and acts as the default app store for majority of the Android devices currently. Apps from the Google Play Store are of two types - Paid and Free. Purchases on the Play Store are fairly easy and can be done using multiple avenues, including cash cards, Google Wallet and Paypal.

Google Play is the collection of services that include Play Music, Play Books, Play Newsstand, Play Movies & TV and Play Games. It is also the second most common app store in the world and has reached over 50 billion downloads as of late 2015.

#3

The mother of all mobile operating systems, Android, is a linux-based OS that was acquired by Google in 2005 and officially unveiled in 2007. Initially, it was developed by Andy Rubin of Android Inc. who sold the operating system to Google at a price of around $50 million. Android OS has always based its upgrade model names on desserts, in an alphabetical order. Currently, Android 6.0 is named Marshmallow, succeeding Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Google Android is open-source software and the announcement of one billion official users came during Google I/O 2014. According to various research agencies, Android has a massive 81.3% share in the total global smartphone shipments. Samsung is the biggest producer of Android-based smartphones globally.

#4

Released back in September 2008, Google Chrome is currently the most popular and widely used mobile as well as desktop browser in the world. Reaching over one billion users in May 2015, Google Chrome has a 58% market share in desktop browsers and also a similar majority share when it comes to the mobile space. It is open-source software and most of the code released by Google comes under the project Chromium.

The Chrome brand has expanded with the introduction of the Chromecast media streaming device as well as the budget laptops called Chromebooks. In 2010, Google also launched the Chrome Web Store that acts as the default app store for the Chrome browser. It allows logged-in users to download extensions and applications to make their browsing experience better.

#5

One of the many popular not-for-profit projects for Google is Maps. Acquired by Google in 2004, Maps was initially pitched to be a purely Web-based software project but slowly saw a transformation into the application environment. Present in over 150 countries across the world, Google Maps offers satellite, terrain and real-time views of majority of streets and locations for user convenience.

In 2008, Google announced the launch of Street View that offers 360-degree panoramic views of limited locations across the world. Included in the list are famous public sightings and many more streets are slated to be part of the program once Google's self-driving car becomes commercial. Along with these features, Google Maps offers real-time route planning for users to judge their routes before beginning a trip. This is made possible by crowdsourcing data from other Google Maps users across the region.

#6

Another one of Google's successful acquisitions is YouTube, the world's most popular media streaming website. Created by former Paypal employees, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, YouTube was developed after the founders saw a devoid of alternatives on the Internet that would let them share videos publicily. The first video on YouTube is titled ‘Me at the Zoo' starring one of the co-founders.

YouTube is one of the most profitable ventures for Google with the introduction of the YouTube Partners program in 2007. Based on the AdSense program, the Partner program offers independent video producers to upload their videos and earn a significant amount of revenue as a result of their uploaded content.

#7

The basis of starting Google Inc, Google Search was launched by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1997. Search or Google.com is the world's most visited website, the most popular search engine and has over three billion searches in a single day. The search algorithm for Google Search, PageRank, is the most sophisticated and complex in the world. Due to this patented algorithm, Google has managed to maintain a certain level of monopoly in the global market.

Being the first product for Google to reach one billion users, Search plays the most important role for earning revenues at Alphabet. This is made possible by Google's very own AdSense and AdWords platforms.