How The Tech Monopolies Became So Powerful

Alibaba

Alibaba’s revenue increased 35% in 2020 to $71 billion. Their revenue is divided between 4 different segments:

Core Commerce includes retail and wholesale commerce and logistics services.
Cloud Computing includes Alibaba Cloud which is a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide. This includes computing, database, storage and other cloud services.
Digital Media and Entertainment provides original entertainment such as Alibaba Pictures and other content platforms. Their different content forms include news, music, literature, and many others.
Innovation Initiatives and Others includes some of their services and products such as Amap, DingTalk, etc.

Alibaba’s revenue has grown exponentially since going public with their revenue growth from $12.2 billion in 2014 to $105 billion in 2020. Their net income has also grown rapidly from $3.9 billion in 2014 to $26 billion in 2020.

Tech giant Alibaba and its CEO Jack Ma — Jack Ma, Founder and CEO of Alibaba. Source: CNN.

Alphabet

Google’s revenue comes mostly from their ad revenue from Google search. Their revenue has gone from $37.9 billion in 2011 to $182.5 billion in 2020, an increase of over 300%. In 2011 their net income was $9.7 billion and has grown to $40.2 billion in 2020.

Google’s segments include Google Search revenue, YouTube ads, Google Cloud, and Other Bets. Their revenues increased 13% in 2020 and operating income grew 23%.

The highs and lows of Alphabets income & revenue are:

Highest:

Revenue: 2020 = $182.5 billion
Income: 2020 = $40.2 billion

Lowest:

Revenue: 2011 = $37.9 billion
Income: 2011 = $9.7 billion

A Google headquarters, the tech giant is considered a Monopoly — A Google Headquarters. Is the tech giant a monopoly?

Amazon

Amazon saw a massive spike in revenue in 2020 as the country was forced into lockdown and pushed towards doing more and more of their shopping online rather than going to the store. Online consumer purchases went beyond clothes and tech gadgets to everyday household items that people were used to going to the store for.

In 2020 Amazon’s revenue was $386 billion compared to $280 billion in 2019. While their online retail segment brings in most of the revenue, their Amazon Web Services segment is what brings in most of the profit for the company. Given that the AWS segment operates at such high-profit margins it is easy to see how Amazon has used the excess cash from that business to grow its other segments.

The highs and lows of Amazon’s income & revenue are:

Highest:

Revenue: 2020 = $386 billion
Income: 2020 = $21.3 billion

Lowest:

Revenue: 2011 = $48 billion
Income: 2014 = – $200 million (loss)

Amazon, the world's most customer centric company — Amazon has been on a non-stop growth stage ever since its launch.

Facebook

Few major company’s revenues have grown as much as Facebook’s has over the past 10 years as their revenue has gone from just $3.7 billion in 2011 to $85.9 billion in 2020. Like a lot of companies who earn their revenue through digital advertising, Facebook saw a large increase in revenue in 2020 as consumers stayed home and the only way to get advertisements in front of their eyes was from digital marketing.

A large part of their revenue growth has come from their purchase of Instagram which they have received a lot of scrutiny for. They have been dealing with more and more regulatory issues as their dominance in digital advertising grows, along with two of their main competitors: Amazon and Google. They are also running into more issues with their capabilities of targeting consumers with ads as Apple has given iPhone users the ability to determine whether or not an app can track user’s behavior.

The highs and lows of Facebook’s income & revenue over the past decade are:

Highest:

Revenue: 2020 = $85.9 billion
Income: 2020 = $29.1 billion

Lowest:

Revenue: 2011 = $3.7 billion
Income: 2012 = $100 million

A lady with the Facebook app opened, tech — Facebook is the widest-used social media platform in the world.

Twitter

While Facebook/Instagram’s income and revenue has been growing steadily over the past decade, Twitter has seen much more volatility with their finances. Only in 2018 did the company finally earn a profit after losing money for the previous 8 years. The company also reported a loss of $34 million in 2020 even with its revenue increasing to $3.7 billion.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, has come under scrutiny for several different reasons over the past few years. One is for his role in the dominance of a few tech giants, namely Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google, & Microsoft. However, he has also been pressured by shareholders about his role at two different major companies as he is also the CEO of the payment services company Square.

The highs and lows of Twitter’s income & revenue are:

Highest: