WELCOME TO THE NEWEST ECONOMY

Imagine artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, machine-learning algorithms, cybernetics and robotics all working to make money for you. Welcome to the FAANG economy. Coined by Wall Street analysts, FAANG is an acronym for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, the five global tech stocks that boast a collective market cap of $2.5 trillion. This is more than the projected 2017 GDP of UK, the fifth largest economy in the world. On Thursday, Jeff Bezos displaced Microsoft’s Bill Gates as the richest man on earth thanks to a surge in the Amazon share price. Besides making their founders and investors richer by the day, the FAANGs are redefining their own business models and that of their industries.

$497B 53%

FACEBOOK The world’s biggest social media platform recently crossed the twobillion-user mark and continues to be the place to be for advertisers.

$799B 32%

APPLE The world’s favourite smartphonemaker will report results on August 1, but all eyes are on one thing: the 10th-anniversary iPhone.

$511B 42%

AMAZON The e-com giant took over Souq earlier this year, but its deal to acquire Whole Foods could make it the world’s first trillion-dollar firm.

$80B 49%

NETFLIX The power of being mobile is rubbing off on Netflix: it played a key role in the company’s addition of 5.2 million subscribers in Q2.

$661B 21%

GOOGLE Despite a $2.74 billion fine slapped by the EU, search giant Google’s parent-Alphabet raked in $3.5 billion in Q2 revenue.

Figures in $ denote the latest market capitalisation; Figures in % are share price increases in 2017 till date