Google Australia's holding company changes to Alphabet

Google Australia has officially changed its holding company to Alphabet Inc.

Details of the change were officially published by regulatory authorities today, signed by Google Australia director John Elliot Howell. The change was effective in Australia from 2 October, nearly two months after Alphabet was first announced.

The creation of Alphabet saw the search giant separate its various subsidiaries into separate businesses – the company’s interests range from drones to driverless cars, health and Internet advertising.

Google is one of a “collection of companies” under Alphabet, co-founder Larry Page stated in August. Google’s financial results will be released separately to the other business.

While Alphabet’s website is abc.xyz, Google has also reportedly bought the domain abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com.

Page said the Alphabet name was chosen because the alphabet represent language, the core of how Google search indexes.

He said “we also like that it means alpha‑bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark)”.