Snapshot: Comparing Google’s economic impacts in Brazil and Mexico

US giant Google often claims to generate multibillion-dollar economic impacts from its investments and operations in Latin America, including cloud services, advertising, data transmission and business generation, among others.

But how do these impacts compare in the region's two main economies? Where are these effects greatest?

In Brazil, Google claims to have contributed 188bn reais (US$33.4bn) to Brazilian companies and individuals in 2023, an 18.6% jump over 2022.

The figure considers the company's core operations and services – the platforms Search, Google Ads, Google AdSense, Google Play, Google Cloud and YouTube.

In 2022, the company’s reported economic impact on the Brazilian economy was 153bn reais. Brazil is among the top five countries that most use Google products. 

São Paulo also hosts one of Google’s two cloud regions (datacenter clusters) in Latin America, the other being in Santiago, Chile.

The region was launched in 2017, followed by the one in Santiago in 2022, all with three availability zones each.

Brazil is also home to the company’s R&D and engineering center for Latin America, opened in 2006 in Belo Horizonte. Google is now working on a second such center, in São Paulo.

In terms of connectivity, the company will soon announce the inauguration of its fully owned Firmina submarine cable, connecting Praia Grande in São Paulo state to Myrtle Beach in the US. 

Firmina, named after Brazilian slavery abolitionist Maria Firmina dos Reis, will also connect Uruguay and Argentina.

The company also exclusively owns the Junior cable, connecting Praia Grande to Rio de Janeiro, and co-owns the Tannat (Brazil-Argentina-Uruguay) and Monet (US-Brazil) cables.

MEXICO

In Mexico, Google's reported economic impact, comprising the same set of services and products, amounted to 278bn pesos (US$14bn) in 2023.

This was an increase of 4.3% over the 266bn pesos estimated for 2022. 

In the cases of both Brazil and Mexico, the values are calculated for Google by the global consultancy Access Partnership.

Those studies are released annually by the company during its respective Google for Brazil and Google for Mexico events.

The company does not hold these country-specific events or report specific economic impacts in any other market in the region.

Overall, Google claims to have sustained around 170,800 jobs in Mexico, while generating 11.9bn pesos in revenue for app developers through the Play Store, among other outcomes.

The company arrived in the country in November 2005, a few months later after officially launching in Brazil.

At present, Google is looking to expand its infrastructure in Mexico, which 20 years on remains considerably smaller than that in Brazil. 

For example, Google has no cable landing on Mexican shores, nor has it presented any immediate plan to have one, having relied on third-party systems for international data traffic and on cross-border terrestrial networks for connection to the US. 

However, the company is currently working on its first Mexican cloud region, a project announced in July 2022 and being developed in Querétaro. 

Google’s economic impact reports for Brazil and Mexico can be accessed in the Documents box in the top right corner of the screen.