Everyone knows the tech industry is rich, but it can be challenging to get your head around just how much money it’s minting.
Four of the industry’s giants — Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet — reported unexpectedly large profits. (Amazon’s profit more than doubled) A fifth, Apple, releases earnings last week. These companies are the largest on Earth, at least in terms of their market value.
The large profits come even as the tech industry, notably Facebook, faces questions about the extent to which companies depend on collecting personal data on users to fuel their advertising revenue.
Raw financial figures only tell you so much, though. Here are seven facts you might not know about the lucre the technology industry is rolling in.
The five largest tech companies are collectively worth more than the entire economy of the United Kingdom. Investors value these companies at $3.5 trillion; the gross domestic product of the U.K. was $2.6 trillion in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund. Only four national economies are larger than the combined tech giants: those of the U.S., China, Japan and Germany.
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