According to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Samsung Electronics was the fourth-largest R&D spender globally during the one-year period beginning H2 last year. The report, which looked into the R&D spending of the world's 1,000 largest public companies, placed Samsung’s R&D spending at $15.3 billion, netting it the 4th rank for the second year in a row. The Korean giant’s investments in R&D went up by 6.8% year-on-year and accounted for 6.8% of the company’s sales.
E-commerce giant, Amazon, topped the list with an R&D spending of $22.6 billion, while Alphabet Inc. with $16.2 billion and Volkswagen with $15.8 billion occupied the next two spots, respectively. Intel came in fifth with $13.1 billion, followed by Microsoft with $12.3 billion and Apple with $11.6 billion. The combined R&D spending of all the 1,000 companies in the report stood at a staggering $782 billion – an increase of 11.4% year-on-year.
Samsung Electronics ranked as the sixth most innovative company
The PwC report also includes a list of the world’s most innovative companies based on an online survey of 869 CEOs and executives. Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Tesla took the top-five spots on the list, while Samsung Electronics retained its position as the sixth most innovative company in the world.
Samsung has been consistently ranked as one of the R&D top spenders in recent years, with some reports even placing it at the top of the list. The differences in ranking across these reports could be probably due to the research methodology and the time period under consideration. Though Samsung’s investment in R&D sounds impressive, it is worth noting that the company is far more diversified compared to the other top spenders on the list.
