Google has revealed that its G Suite bundle of productivity software had over six million paying businesses in March which is up from five million in February of last year.The search giant's parent company Alphabet also recently disclosed Google Cloud's revenue for the first ever as it looks to grow beyond advertising which made up 83 percent of the company's revenue in 2019.In an interview with CNBC, vice president and general manager of G Suite, Javier Soltero commented on the software's impressive growth, saying:The business of G Suite is growing at an incredibly healthy and, frankly for me, surprising rate.Despite is recent growth, Google's G Suite still faces stiff competition from Microsoft's Office 365.With millions of people working from home or studying through distance learning as a result of the global pandemic, G Suite's video calling service Google Meet also saw increased adoption.
In fact, the service has 25 times more users than it did in January, according to Soltero.Last month Google decided to extend some features of Meet, such as allowing 250 participants in video calls and live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers on a domain, to help people stay connected during this trying time.
These features are normally only available to G Suite Enterprise customers but the search giant decided to offer them to all of its G Suite customers until July 1, though this deadline has now been extended until September 30.According to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, Google Meet racked up two billion minutes of video calls in March and during that time, the service grew by 60 percent day over day.Surprisingly, G Suite's video calling service saw the most usage on Saturdays which is unusual as it is primarily meant to be used in the workplace.Via CNBC