Google’s Larry Page & Sergey Brin Join Superrich $100 Billion List

The tech sector is having a good pandemic. A big rise in the share price of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has seen the founders of Google, the world’s biggest internet search company by far, join the ultra-exclusive list of 6 people with net worth of over $100 billion. Larry Page and Sergey Brin are joining the $100 billion club which is dominated by white males such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who made their fortunes in technology. The two non-tech members are the legendary investor, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and French luxury goods tycoon, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault.

According to Bloomberg Billionaire Index, the fortune of Google co-founders has risen by a combined $40 billion amid the new coronavirus pandemic as technology stocks soar.

While Brin’s net worth grew by $20.4 billion within a year, Page’s rose by $21.2 billion.

Two years ago, Page and Brin stepped down from the day-to-day management of the company to assume the role of “proud parents – offering advice and love but not daily nagging”. They handed over Google’s control and that of its parent firm to the longstanding lieutenant Sundar Pichai.

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The pair together control 51% of a special class of Alphabet’s voting shares, which empower them to decide company’s future direction. But they own only 11.4% of the $1.5 trillion company.

A Pandemic that Lifted All Tech Stocks

As the new coronavirus pandemic spread all over the world and millions of office workers flocked to video conferencing applications like Zoom and Google Meet, technology stocks have done very well. There is a consensus that the new mode of working virtually with the aid of technology will survive the pandemic. The share price of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has risen by over 80% in the past year.

About 70% of Google’s revenue comes from digital advertising across its channels including YouTube. Advertisers have been steadily spending more on digital adverts and less on traditional adverts on television and in newspapers as audiences everywhere turn to the internet for information and entertainment. In 2020, digital advertising spend grew by 12% despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, February 1, 2021, Alphabet announced its quarterly earnings results. It reported $22.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, exceeding analysts’ consensus estimates of $15.91 by $6.39.

Alphabet made a revenue of $56.90 billion in the first quarter of the year, surpassing analysts’ prediction of $52.86 billion. On a year-over-year basis, Alphabet’s quarterly revenue grew by 23.5%.

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The pandemic has also boosted tech companies in Nigeria. MTN for instance increased revenue from data services in the first quarter of 2020 by 32.4%.

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