So how much money does it cost to provide the world"s most popular search engine, mapping software, and email tool? The answer is, "A lot!"
That"s what we learned from Google"s recent quarterly results. According to DataCenterKnowledge, the search giant spent $1.6B (that"s $1,600,000,000.00!) on capital expenses for the second quarter of their fiscal year. While those numbers represent all capital expenditures (such as laptops and chairs for employees), the majority of that total went into building up their datacenter infrastructure. The number represents an increase of over 30% compared to their Q1 spend, and a 60% increase over the previous Q4 spend. In total, Google has spent more than $4.6B on capital expenses in the past year alone, and that trend isn"t expected to slow down anytime soon with expansions in Iowa, North and South Carolina, Belgium, as well as expanded infrastructures in South America and Asia.
Seeing the amount of money Google spends to provide the services they do is staggering. The number is even more amazing when you think about the fact that they don"t directly charge users for any of their services. These results are proof that personal information and advertising dollars are big business.
Source: DataCenterKnowledge