November 21, 2024

• 

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has ranked No. 4 among 1,000 major global companies in terms of spending on research and development  over the past year, a report showed on Nov. 29.

The Korean tech juggernaut spent US$15.3 billion on R&D projects over the period beginning in the second half of last year, retaining the No. 4 spot for two years running, according to a report from global accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The amount was up 6.8 percent from the same period a year earlier and accounted for 6.8 percent of Samsung’s sales.

US online commerce giant Amazon topped the list with US$22.6 billion, followed by Alphabet, Google‘s holding company., with US$16.2 billion. German automaker Volkswagen placed third with US$15.8 billion.

Intel’s R&D spending rose 2.6 percent on-year to US$13.1 billion, dropping to fifth place from third. Microsoft came next with US$12.3 billion won, trailed by Apple with US$11.6 billion.

The combined R&D expenditures of the 1,000 firms climbed 11.4 percent on-year to a record high of US$782 billion over the cited period, taking up 40 percent of the global total.

Meanwhile, Samsung ranked as the sixth most innovative company in the world in a PwC survey of 869 CEOs and executives across the world. Apple, Amazon and Alphabet retained the top three spots for the second consecutive year.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)