Organic growth

Organic growth is the part of a company's growth that comes from its existing operations, more customers, higher usage, or higher prices for what it already sells, rather than from acquiring other companies.

The distinction matters because acquisitions can make a company's overall growth rate look strong even while the core business is struggling on its own. A company buying its way to a 20% growth rate is telling a very different story than one growing 20% purely from existing operations, even though the headline number looks identical.

Currency effects add a similar wrinkle for companies with meaningful international sales, revenue can rise simply because a foreign currency strengthened against the dollar, with no actual change in units sold or prices charged. Investors often look at organic growth specifically, sometimes reported separately by a company as "organic" or "constant currency" growth, to strip out both acquisitions and currency effects and see how the underlying business is actually performing.