Who owns Google Play?
Google Play is owned by Alphabet (the United States, NASDAQ: GOOGL).[1]
Evidence: Alphabet Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-05, SEC EDGAR, 5 February 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Alphabet Inc. verified
- Owner HQ
- 🇺🇸 United States, Mountain View, California
- Origin
- 🇺🇸 United States
- Founded
- 2008
- Category
- Internet & digital › Online commerce › Marketplaces
- Parent ticker
- NASDAQ: GOOGL
- Last verified
- · 1 sources
About Google Play
Google Play distributes apps, games, books and films to Android devices, and the commission it takes on in-app purchases has been the subject of litigation worldwide. A United States jury found in 2023 that the store operated as an illegal monopoly.
What Alphabet's annual report says about Google Play
Sentences about Google Play from Alphabet's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
We report revenues from Google Play sales of apps and in-app purchases on a net basis because our performance obligation is to facilitate a transaction between app developers and end users for which we earn a service fee.
Google Play: In July 2021, a number of state Attorneys General filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California concerning Google's operation of Android and Google Play and its compliance with US antitrust laws and state antitrust and consumer protection laws.
The presiding judge issued a remedies decision in October 2024, ordering a variety of alterations to our business models and operations and contractual agreements for Android and Google Play.
How often Alphabet names Google Play in its annual report
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
Ownership timeline of Google Play
Where Google Play sits in Alphabet
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Alphabet ownership tree →
See the full Alphabet brand portfolio (13) →
Other brands owned by Alphabet
Alphabet controls 13 brands on Brandtree, 13 of them in internet & digital.
Also in internet & digital
- Android (2003)
- Fitbit (2007)
- Gmail (2004)
- Google Chrome (2008)
- Google Cloud (2008)
- Google DeepMind (2010)
- Google Maps (2005)
- Google Nest (2010)
- Google Search (1998)
- Waymo (2009)
- Waze (2008)
- YouTube (2005)
Other brands in marketplaces, and who owns them
The 57 brands in marketplaces on Brandtree belong to 26 owners. The largest is Alibaba, with 7.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| 1688.com | Alibaba | 🇭🇰 Hong Kong |
| Allegro | Allegro | 🇵🇱 Poland |
| anibis.ch | SMG Swiss Marketplace Group | 🇨🇭 Switzerland |
| carsales | CAR Group | 🇦🇺 Australia |
| Kaspi.kz | Kaspi.kz | 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan |
| Duo Duo Grocery | PDD Holdings | 🇮🇪 Ireland |
| Cars.com | Cars.com | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Depop | eBay | 🇺🇸 United States |
About the owner: Alphabet
Alphabet is a publicly listed company headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States, founded in 1998. Brandtree records 13 brands under its control, and it is listed as NASDAQ: GOOGL.
Alphabet was created in 2015 as a holding company above Google, separating the search and advertising business from ventures such as Waymo and Verily. Google itself was founded in 1998 by two Stanford graduate students, and advertising against search results still produces the overwhelming majority of the group's revenue.
🇺🇸 Google Play and other American brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Google Play is not one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Google Play?
The parent company of Google Play is Alphabet, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Is Google Play American?
Yes. Google Play originated in the United States in 2008 and its owner, Alphabet, is also headquartered in the United States.
Is Google Play still owned by Alphabet?
Yes. As of 9 October 2026, Google Play is still owned by Alphabet. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (1) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Alphabet Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-05 — SEC EDGAR, SEC Form 10-K, published 5 February 2026; retrieved 16 September 2026.
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