Amazon Is The Global Frontrunner In Research And Development

The latest research by R&D tax credit experts, RIFT Research and Development Ltd, has looked at which names are driving the R&D sector when it comes to spend on sector innovation around the world.  

RIFT looked at the total spend on research and development as well as what percentage of revenue this accounted for.

Top of the list is world-beaters, Amazon, although they remain largely involved in technology and retail as their core business. The US-based business behemoths not only have the retail game on lockdown, but they top the R&D table as well, with the latest figures showing a huge R&D spend of 17.38 billion pounds in a single year. The development of delivery drones must be expensive although it’s money well spent, with Amazon’s evolution ensuring that their giant R&D spend equates to just 13% of revenue!

Tech and software giants, Alphabet, the world’s fifth-largest technology company by revenue and one of the world’s most valuable companies, take the second spot in the R&D spend league table.  The parent company of Google, they spent £12.47bn in a year on research and development, although again, this equated to just 15% of revenue.

Volkswagen takes bronze as one of just three non-tech focused companies in the top 10 R&D spend league table. The German car manufacturer is also the first outside of the US with an R&D spend totaling £12.12bn over the last year.

Samsung (£11.77bn), Microsoft (£11.33bn), Huawei (£10.45bn), Intel (£10.07bn) and Apple (£8.90bn) rank fourth to eight as the tech takeover continues, while Swiss medical multinational Roche Holding, who operates worldwide under the two divisions of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics places ninth with £8.30bn spent on R&D.  

In at the tenth spot is Johnson and Johnson, again largely involved in pharmaceuticals and consumer packaged goods, with an R&D spend of £8.11bn.

Other companies to feature in the top 20 range from Daimler, Ford, Facebook, BMW and Bosch.

Director of RIFT Research and Development Limited, Sarah Collins commented:

“It goes without saying that some of the biggest names in the business will be spending considerable amounts of money on bettering their proposition through innovation, research, and development and those with the huge budgets to do so are also some with the lowest percentage of R&D spend as a percentage of revenue. 

While R&D certainly lends itself to a wider array of work in certain sectors, such as automotive, pharmaceuticals, engineering and software development, it certainly isn’t restricted to these sectors alone and it’s great to see so many vast and varied businesses taking advantage of R&D tax relief in the UK in particular. If you’re an SME pioneering change in your individual sector, make sure you are making the most of Government rewards for doing so and no matter how insignificant you think a step forward might be, the chances are it qualifies as research and development.”