AMAZON TOPS IN INVESTMENT

INVESTMENT in research and development by the world’s largest companies is higher than ever, with US technology giants Amazon and Google leading the way, PwC’s global strategy consultants reported yesterday. German carmakers such as Volkswagen (VW) are also high on the list. The 1 000 largest listed companies invested $782 billion (R11.4 trillion) this year, up 11.4 percent on the year. Amazon led the list, investing $22.6bn in the 12 months to the end of June, the period covered by the survey. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, invested $16.2bn. In third place was VW with investment spending of $15.8bn. German companies Daimler, maker of Mercedes cars and trucks, and Siemens were in the top 20 companies, Daimler with $7.1bn in investment and electronic goods firm Siemens with $6.1bn. The new economy companies spent considerably more on R&D than traditional concerns measured as a percentage of turnover, with Amazon spending 12.7 percent and chip maker Intel as much as 20.9 percent. Peter Gassmann, Europe head of PwC’s consulting arm Strategy&, said VW occupied fifth spot in the previous year after five years at the top of global investment spending. German firms were investing heavily in artificial intelligence and industry 4.0 technologies that relate to networking factories. VW has announced spending of more than €34 billion (R565bn) on electric vehicles, driverless cars, mobility services and digitisation by 2022.

dpa