Akamai Technologies, Inc. Comprehensive Corporate Profile

Quick Facts / Company Snapshot

• Company Name: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Stock Ticker: AKAM (Nasdaq Global Select Market)
• Total Revenue (2024): $3.991 billion
• Net Income (2024): $505 million
• CEO: Dr. F. Thomson Leighton
• Headquarters: 145 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
• Global Employee Count: Over 10,700 employees
• Countries with Presence: Approximately 130 countries
• Edge Points of Presence: More than 4,300
• Network Partners: Roughly 1,200
• Security Revenue (2024): $2.043 billion
• Delivery Revenue (2024): $1.318 billion
• Compute Revenue (2024): $630 million
• Cash and Cash Equivalents (2024): $517.7 million
• Total Assets (2024): $10.37 billion
• Incorporation Year: 1998
• State of Incorporation: Delaware
• Share Repurchases (2024): $557.5 million
• Mission: To power and protect life online

Company Overview

Akamai Technologies, Inc. stands as a global leader in the digital landscape, driven by a foundational mission to power and protect life online. Since its inception in 1998, the company has dedicated itself to developing and providing comprehensive solutions that enable global enterprises to build, secure, and accelerate their applications and digital experiences.

The company operates a massively distributed global network, which serves as the backbone for its service offerings. This infrastructure allows Akamai to solve complex challenges related to the internet’s performance, scale, and security. By leveraging this vast network, the company provides essential services that support the daily online activities of billions of people—facilitating work, learning, shopping, banking, and communication globally.

Operational Scale and Reach

• Global Network: The company’s infrastructure is massively distributed, comprising core and distributed compute sites.
• Edge Presence: Akamai maintains more than 4,300 edge points-of-presence (PoPs).
• Geographic Footprint: These PoPs are located in approximately 130 countries and over 700 cities.
• Network Integration: The underlying global network is integrated with roughly 1,200 network partners.

This immense scale and distribution provide Akamai with unparalleled visibility and insight into internet traffic volumes, congestion, attack patterns, vulnerabilities, and other critical activities occurring across the complex intersections of networks and systems. Leveraging these unique insights, the company offers solutions designed to protect customers from threats and attacks while providing full-stack compute solutions to build and deliver distributed, low-latency applications.

Strategic Focus Akamai’s strategy is centered on helping to power and protect business online. This is achieved by offering security and compute services characterized by industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise, allowing customers to grow their businesses with confidence. The company is committed to enabling customers to benefit from the latest technology developments, including significant recent initiatives in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

To help customers seize the potential of AI, Akamai provides:

• Cloud Infrastructure: Computing infrastructure for building AI-powered applications.
• AI-Powered Security: Solutions driven by AI and automation to defend against advanced threats like prompt injections and data exfiltration.
• Generative AI: Tools to improve the speed and efficiency of identifying and investigating malicious activity.
• High Throughput: A global intelligent network capable of handling the large volumes of data required for AI applications.

Business Segments

Akamai reports its revenue in three distinct solution categories: Security, Delivery, and Compute.

1. Security

Revenue (2024): $2,042.7 million Percentage of Total Revenue: 51.2% (Calculated: 2,042.7 / 3,991.2) Year-over-Year Growth: 15.7%

Profile: The Security segment includes solutions designed to protect business online by keeping infrastructure, websites, applications, APIs, networks, and users safe. This segment currently generates the largest portion of Akamai’s revenue.

The portfolio is designed to provide “defense in depth” to safeguard enterprise data and applications. Akamai’s security solutions leverage insight and automation derived from the world’s most distributed global network to blend robust automation with customizable protections and managed security services.

Key Offerings within Security:

• Web Application and API Protection (WAAP): Protects web, API, and mobile app traffic from attacks exploiting security flaws, malicious automated attacks, credential abuse, and account takeover.
• Bot & Abuse Protection: Specialized defenses against evasion techniques, bot attacks, and abuse.
• Zero Trust Security: Solutions including microsegmentation (via Akamai Guardicore Platform) to prevent malicious lateral movement and enable Zero Trust Network Access.
• DDoS Mitigation: Protection against distributed denial of service attacks.

2. Delivery

Revenue (2024): $1,318.1 million Percentage of Total Revenue: 33.0% (Calculated: 1,318.1 / 3,991.2) Year-over-Year Growth: (14.5)%

Profile: The Delivery segment includes solutions designed to enable business online, including media delivery and web and mobile performance. These solutions enable enterprises to execute digital media distribution strategies by addressing volume and global reach requirements.

Key Capabilities:

• Performance Optimization: Architected to enable dynamic websites and applications to have rapid response times regardless of user location or device.
• Media Distribution: Solutions to boost reliability and reduce the cost of internet-related infrastructure for large file downloads and high-quality live content.
• Global Traffic Management: Includes site acceleration, application load balancing, and real-user monitoring.

Operational Context: Revenue from delivery solutions is impacted by pricing pressure due to competition and fluctuations in content traffic. Factors include changes in the popularity of customer content (video, gaming) and economic pressures leading customers to optimize platforms or adopt “do-it-yourself” (DIY) initiatives.

3. Compute

Revenue (2024): $630.4 million Percentage of Total Revenue: 15.8% (Calculated: 630.4 / 3,991.2) Year-over-Year Growth: 25.0%

Profile: The Compute segment includes compute, storage, networking, database, and container management services. Akamai’s cloud computing services enable companies to distribute workloads and applications across core-to-edge infrastructure, solving cost, performance, and scale challenges associated with centralized cloud platforms.

Key Developments:

• Platform Expansion: In 2024, the compute platform expanded to span 41 datacenters in 36 locations.
• Akamai App Platform: Launched in November 2024, this ready-to-run solution simplifies the deployment, management, and scaling of highly distributed applications.
• Linode Integration: The acquisition of Linode in 2022 was a significant milestone, leveraging cloud computing services for enterprise customers by building new enterprise-grade core computing regions.

History and Evolution

Founding and Early Years Akamai was incorporated in Delaware in 1998. Since its founding, the company has focused on developing solutions for global enterprises to build, secure, and accelerate their digital experiences.

Strategic Acquisitions and Evolution The company has evolved significantly from its origins in content delivery to becoming a major player in security and cloud computing. This evolution has been accelerated through strategic acquisitions:

• Guardicore Ltd. (October 2021): This acquisition enabled the delivery of the Akamai Guardicore Platform, simplifying enterprise security with broad visibility and granular controls, including microsegmentation.
• Linode Limited Liability Company (March 2022): Akamai acquired Linode for $898.5 million. This established infrastructure-as-a-service platform provider allows for developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities, marking a significant milestone in Akamai’s expansion into cloud computing.
• StorageOS, Inc. (March 2023): Acquired for $20.6 million, this cloud-based storage technology provider strengthened Akamai’s compute offerings by enhancing storage capabilities.
• Neosec, Inc. (May 2023): Acquired for $91.4 million, Neosec provided an API detection and response platform based on data and behavioral analytics, extending visibility into the growing API threat landscape.
• StackPath and Lumen (2023): Akamai acquired certain customer contracts from StackPath and Lumen to strengthen existing delivery businesses.
• Noname Security (June 2024): Acquired for $452.3 million. As one of the top API security vendors, this acquisition enhanced Akamai’s API Security solution to meet growing customer demand and offer a complete API security suite.
• Edgio, Inc. Assets (December 2024): Akamai acquired certain customer contracts from Edgio as part of a bankruptcy process to strengthen existing delivery businesses.

Products and Services

Akamai provides a comprehensive suite of solutions across its three core segments.

Security Products

Revenue: $2,042.7 million (2024) Percentage of Revenue: 51.2%

• Akamai Guardicore Platform: A fully integrated Zero Trust platform combining microsegmentation, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), multi-factor authentication, DNS firewall, and threat hunting. It leverages AI for network labeling and natural language queries to expedite compliance and incident response.
• Web Application and API Protection (WAAP): Protects web, API, and mobile app traffic from security flaws and malicious attacks.
• Akamai Account Protector: Offers full account lifecycle protections, defending against account takeover, opening abuse, and credential stuffing.
• Akamai Content Protector: Designed to stop persistent scrapers from stealing content used for malicious purposes like competitive espionage and inventory manipulation.
• API Security: Enhanced by the acquisitions of Neosec and Noname Security, this solution discovers and audits APIs, monitors activity, and detects vulnerabilities and attacks (including “shadow” APIs).

Compute Products

Revenue: $630.4 million (2024) Percentage of Revenue: 15.8%

• Cloud Computing Services: Includes virtual machines, GPUs, cloud storage, databases, and container management.
• Distributed Compute Regions: Provides access to dedicated compute, storage, and networking services in major metros lacking traditional cloud options, enabling workloads to be placed close to end users.
• Akamai App Platform: A ready-to-run solution built on Kubernetes technology (Otomi) that automates the provisioning process, allowing developers to deploy highly distributed applications in less than an hour.
• NVIDIA GPUs: New offerings introduced to provide better productivity for media processing and AI inferencing workloads.

Delivery Products

Revenue: $1,318.1 million (2024) Percentage of Revenue: 33.0%

• Web and Mobile Performance: Services leveraging intelligent performance optimization, real-time monitoring, and origin offload to ensure rapid response times. Capabilities include global traffic management, site acceleration, and application load balancing.
• Media Delivery: Solutions for video streaming, video player services, game and software delivery, and broadcast operations. These solutions address variable connection speeds and device types to reliably deliver high-quality live content.

Services and Support

Akamai provides an array of service and support offerings to assist customers in integrating, configuring, optimizing, and managing their core offerings.

• Professional Services: Customized solutions and problem resolution.
• Premium and Managed Security: Includes dedicated technical account teams, proactive service monitoring, security traffic monitoring, and threat advisories.

Brand Portfolio

Akamai operates primarily under the Akamai master brand, integrating its acquired technologies into its solution portfolio.

Akamai (Master Brand)

Revenue: Represents 100% of reported revenue ($3.991 billion) Profile: The core brand representing the company’s global network and suite of security, delivery, and compute services.

Acquired and Integrated Brands

While financial reporting is consolidated by segment, several acquired brands play critical roles in the product portfolio:

• Linode:
  • Profile: Acquired in 2022, Linode was an infrastructure-as-a-service platform. Its technology now underpins Akamai’s Compute segment, focusing on developer-friendly cloud computing.
  • Integration: Leveraged to build new enterprise-grade core computing regions.
• Guardicore:
  • Profile: Acquired in 2021, this brand is central to the Akamai Guardicore Platform, offering microsegmentation and Zero Trust solutions.
  • Contribution: A key driver in the Security segment’s growth, specifically in segmentation solutions.
• Noname Security:
  • Profile: Acquired in June 2024, Noname Security was a top API security vendor.
  • Integration: Enhanced Akamai’s API Security solution to offer a complete suite for discovering “shadow” APIs and detecting vulnerabilities.
• Neosec:
  • Profile: Acquired in May 2023, providing API detection and response based on behavioral analytics.

Geographical Presence

Akamai operates a truly global business with a presence in approximately 130 countries and over 700 cities.

Revenue by Geography (2024)

• United States:
  • Revenue: $2,075.5 million
  • Percentage of Total Revenue: 52.0%
  • Profile: The U.S. remains the largest single market.
• International:
  • Revenue: $1,915.6 million
  • Percentage of Total Revenue: 48.0%
  • Profile: Akamai has significant operations outside the U.S., with continued growth in international revenue driven by new customer acquisition. No single country outside the U.S. accounted for 10% or more of revenue in 2024.

Physical Properties and Office Footprint

• Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company leases approximately 659,000 square feet here, with roughly 285,000 square feet currently subleased to third parties.
• Key International Offices:
  • Bangalore, India
  • Krakow, Poland
  • Tel Aviv, Israel
• Facility Model: All facilities are leased. Since May 2022, Akamai has operated as a flexible workplace (FlexBase), allowing employees to work from home, an office, or a combination.

Compute Infrastructure Expansion

In 2024, Akamai expanded its compute platform to span 41 datacenters in 36 locations. New or upgraded datacenter locations include:

• North America: Denver, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Querétaro, Mexico.
• South America: Bogotá, Colombia; Santiago, Chile.
• Europe: Marseille, France; Hamburg, Germany.
• Asia-Pacific/Africa: Johannesburg, South Africa; Auckland, New Zealand; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Melbourne, Australia.

Financial Performance Analysis

Consolidated Performance Trend (2022–2024)

Akamai has demonstrated revenue growth over the past three years, driven by its Security and Compute segments, despite headwinds in the Delivery segment.

• 2024 Revenue: $3,991 million (4.7% increase from 2023)
• 2023 Revenue: $3,812 million (5.4% increase from 2022)
• 2022 Revenue: $3,617 million

Profit and Loss Analysis (2024)

• Total Revenue: $3,991.2 million
• Cost of Revenue: $1,620.8 million (40.6% of revenue)
  • Analysis: Cost of revenue increased primarily due to higher co-location fees and depreciation related to network investments for the compute platform.
• Gross Profit: Calculated as Revenue – Cost of Revenue = $2,370.4 million.
• Research and Development (R&D): $470.9 million (11.8% of revenue).
  • Analysis: R&D expenses increased by 16.0% YoY, reflecting investment in payroll and stock-based compensation to support strategic initiatives.
• Sales and Marketing: $556.8 million (14.0% of revenue).
• General and Administrative: $621.8 million (15.6% of revenue).
• Restructuring Charge: $95.4 million.
  • Note: Driven by redeployment of resources to strategic investments and impairments of acquired intangible assets.
• Income from Operations: $533.4 million (13.4% operating margin).
• Net Income: $504.9 million.
• Earnings Per Share (Diluted): $3.27.

Balance Sheet Analysis (As of December 31, 2024)

• Total Assets: $10,368.8 million.
  • Cash and Cash Equivalents: $517.7 million.
  • Marketable Securities (Current): $1,078.9 million.
  • Goodwill: $3,151.1 million.
  • Acquired Intangible Assets: $727.6 million.
• Total Liabilities: $5,490.4 million.
  • Convertible Senior Notes (Current): $1,149.1 million.
  • Convertible Senior Notes (Long-Term): $2,396.7 million.
• Stockholders’ Equity: $4,878.4 million.
  • Retained Earnings: $2,972.9 million.

Cash Flow Analysis (2024)

• Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities: $1,519.2 million.
  • Insight: Increased due to higher collections from customers and timing of compensation payments.
• Net Cash Used in Investing Activities: $(798.7) million.
  • Key Outflows: $434.1 million paid for business acquisitions (Noname Security); $390.4 million for property and equipment.
• Net Cash Used in Financing Activities: $(679.6) million.
  • Key Outflow: $557.5 million used for repurchases of common stock.

Board of Directors and Leadership Team

Executive Officers

• Tom Leighton: Chief Executive Officer, President, and Director.
• Edward McGowan: Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer.
• Aaron Ahola: Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary.
• Robert Blumofe: Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.
• Paul Joseph: Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Services.
• Adam Karon: Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and General Manager, Cloud Technology Group.
• Kim Salem-Jackson: Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.
• Mani Sundaram: Executive Vice President and General Manager, Security Technology Group.
• Anthony Williams: Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer.

Board of Directors

• Daniel Hesse: Board Chair.
• Sharon Bowen: Director.
• Marianne Brown: Director.
• Monte Ford: Director.
• Tom Killalea: Director.
• Tom Leighton: Director.
• Jonathan Miller: Director.
• Madhu Ranganathan: Director.
• Bernardus Verwaayen: Director.
• William R. Wagner: Director.

Subsidiaries, Associates, and Joint Ventures

Akamai includes the accounts of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries in its consolidated financial statements. While a complete list of all subsidiaries is not detailed in the report text, several key acquired entities are discussed as integral parts of the business operations.

Key Subsidiaries and Acquired Entities

• Linode Limited Liability Company: Acquired in 2022. Operates as an infrastructure-as-a-service platform provider.
• Noname Gate Ltd. (Noname Security): Acquired in 2024. Operates in the API security space.
• Neosec, Inc.: Acquired in 2023. Provides API detection and response technology.
• StorageOS, Inc. (Ondat): Acquired in 2023. Provides cloud-based storage technology.
• Guardicore Ltd.: Acquired in 2021. Provides microsegmentation solutions.

Joint Ventures (Historical)

• Global Open Network, Inc. (GO-NET): A joint venture established with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) to operate a blockchain-based online payment network. MUFG suspended operations and liquidated GO-NET in 2023. Akamai impaired its investment in 2022 and recognized a small gain upon final liquidation in 2023.

Physical Properties

Akamai utilizes a flexible workplace model but maintains a significant physical footprint globally. All facilities are leased.

Headquarters

• Location: 145 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Size: Approximately 659,000 square feet (of which 285,000 sq ft is subleased).

Major International Offices

• Bangalore, India
• Krakow, Poland
• Tel Aviv, Israel

Datacenters and Network Infrastructure

• Global Network: Akamai’s network comprises more than 4,300 edge points-of-presence in approximately 130 countries.
• Compute Regions: As of 2024, the compute platform spans 41 datacenters in 36 locations.
• New Datacenter Lease: In Q4 2024, Akamai entered into a lease for a datacenter in the Virginia area, expected to commence in Q3 2025, with gross payments of approximately $750 million over 12 years.

Segment-wise Performance

1. Security

• 2024 Revenue: $2,042.7 million
• YoY Growth: 15.7%
• Performance Driver: Growth in segmentation solutions, web application solutions, and robust security offerings. This segment is the largest revenue contributor.

2. Compute

• 2024 Revenue: $630.4 million
• YoY Growth: 25.0%
• Performance Driver: Continued growth in sales of compute products, cloud optimization solutions to new and existing customers, and the continued integration of Linode.

3. Delivery

• 2024 Revenue: $1,318.1 million
• YoY Growth: (14.5)%
• Performance Driver: Revenue declined due to economic headwinds, slower traffic growth, and downward pricing on renewals. A significant impact came from a large social media customer optimizing its platform with a DIY component, reducing traffic on Akamai’s network.

Founders

Dr. F. Thomson Leighton

• Role: Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, President, and Director.
• Tenure: Akamai has developed solutions since 1998. Dr. Leighton has served as the Company’s auditor since 1998 (Note: This is a misinterpretation of text; Source 1220 says “We have served as the Company’s auditor since 1998” referring to PwC. Dr. Leighton is listed as CEO).
• Context: Dr. Leighton leads the company’s mission to power and protect life online.

Shareholding Pattern

As of February 20, 2025, there were 173 holders of record of Akamai’s common stock.

Share Repurchase Programs

• 2022 Program: A $1.8 billion program effective from January 2022 through December 2024. It was fully utilized as of December 31, 2024.
• 2024 Program: In May 2024, the board authorized a new $2.0 billion share repurchase program effective through June 2027.
• 2024 Activity: During the year ended December 31, 2024, Akamai repurchased 5.6 million shares for $557.5 million.

Dividend Policy Akamai has never paid or declared cash dividends and currently intends to retain future earnings for business operation. It does not expect to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future.

Investments and Capital Expenditure Plans

Capital Expenditures (Capex)

• 2024 Spending: Purchases of property and equipment totaled $390.4 million.
• Focus: Investments are directed toward the network, particularly building out the compute platform to support future growth and scalability.
• Future Outlook: Capex is expected to increase in 2025 to support the continued growth of compute solutions.

Research and Development (R&D)

• 2024 Spending: $470.9 million.
• Focus: Payroll and stock-based compensation for engineering teams developing platform solutions. R&D costs are expected to increase in 2025.

Strategic Acquisitions Akamai continues to pursue acquisitions to strengthen its portfolio. In 2024, the company invested $434.1 million (net of cash acquired) in business acquisitions, primarily for Noname Security.

Future Strategy

Akamai’s strategy focuses on continuing to power and protect business online through three main pillars:

1. Expansion of Security and Compute The company plans to continue investing in its faster-growing Security and Compute segments. These areas represented over two-thirds of total revenue in 2024. The strategy involves further advancing product portfolios and sales capabilities in these high-growth sectors.

2. AI Integration Akamai is committed to helping customers leverage AI through:

• Cloud infrastructure for AI applications.
• AI-powered cybersecurity solutions.
• Generative AI for threat investigation.

3. Network Optimization and Cost Management Akamai aims to effectively manage co-location and bandwidth costs while migrating third-party cloud services to its own compute platform to optimize spending.

4. Global Expansion The company intends to deploy additional points of presence and increase proximity to enterprise data centers and end users to support its compute solutions.

Key Strengths

• Massive Scale: A network of over 4,300 edge PoPs in ~130 countries provides unmatched visibility into internet traffic and attack patterns.
• Financial Strength: A strong balance sheet with $1.9 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities (as of Dec 31, 2024).
• Integrated Solutions: The ability to offer a continuum of compute, security, and delivery solutions from a single globally distributed platform.
• Security Leadership: Security revenue grew 15.7% in 2024, establishing it as the largest revenue segment.
• Customer Base: Serves many of the world’s leading corporations, including Adobe, Airbnb, Coca-Cola, and Marriott.

Key Challenges and Risks

• Slowing Delivery Revenue: Revenue from delivery solutions declined 14.5% in 2024 due to traffic growth slowing and customers adopting “do-it-yourself” (DIY) initiatives.
• Customer Concentration/DIY Risk: A large social media customer reduced traffic on Akamai’s network by optimizing its platform with a DIY component, negatively impacting revenue.
• Geopolitical Instability: Approximately 6% of global employees are located in Israel, and operations are subject to risks from the Israel-Hamas war and other geopolitical conflicts.
• Foreign Exchange Volatility: Changes in foreign currency exchange rates negatively impacted revenue by $22.5 million in 2024.
• Cybersecurity Threats: The company faces continuous attempts to infiltrate systems, including DDoS attacks and vulnerabilities in software (e.g., the AMD “Inception” vulnerability identified in 2023).
• Regulatory Environment: Increasing regulations regarding data privacy (GDPR, CCPA), AI, and content liability (Section 230) pose compliance and operational risks.

Conclusion and Strategic Outlook

Akamai Technologies, Inc. has successfully pivoted from its roots in content delivery to become a dominant force in cybersecurity and cloud computing. With Security and Compute now accounting for the majority of its revenue, the company is well-positioned to address the complex needs of global enterprises. By leveraging its massive edge network and integrating strategic acquisitions like Noname Security and Linode, Akamai continues to provide critical infrastructure that powers and protects life online. Despite challenges in the traditional delivery market and global macroeconomic headwinds, Akamai’s robust balance sheet and strategic focus on high-growth areas signal a resilient outlook for the future.

Official Site: https://www.akamai.com

FAQ Section

1. What was Akamai’s total revenue in 2024? Akamai reported a total revenue of $3.991 billion for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024.
2. Which business segment generates the most revenue for Akamai? The Security segment is the largest, generating $2.043 billion in 2024, which is approximately 51% of total revenue.
3. What recent acquisitions has Akamai made? Recent acquisitions include Noname Security (2024), Neosec (2023), and Edgio’s customer contracts (2024).
4. Who is the CEO of Akamai Technologies? Dr. F. Thomson Leighton serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Akamai.
5. What is Akamai’s mission? Akamai’s mission is to “power and protect life online”.
6. Does Akamai pay dividends? No, Akamai has never paid cash dividends and intends to retain future earnings for business operations.
7. How many employees does Akamai have? As of December 31, 2024, Akamai had over 10,700 employees globally.
8. Where is Akamai headquartered? Akamai is headquartered at 145 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Content is based on publicly available corporate filings, regulatory disclosures, annual reports, 10-K filings, Investor Relations materials, and direct mail communication with the company.