Visualizing How The Big 5 Tech Giants Make Their Billions

Hitting record high after record high, tech companies have displaced traditional blue chip companies like Exxon Mobil and Walmart as the most valuable companies in the world.

Here are the latest market valuations for those same five companies:

Together, they are worth $2.9 trillion in market capitalization – and they combined in FY2016 for revenues of $555 billion with a $94 billion bottom line.

BRINGING HOME THE BACON?

Despite all being at the top of the stock market food chain, Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins points out that the companies are at very different stages.

In 2016, Apple experienced its first annual revenue decline since 2001, but the company brought home a profit equal to that of all other four companies combined.

On the other hand, Amazon is becoming a revenue machine with very little margin, while Facebook generates 5x more profit despite far smaller top line numbers.

HOW THEY MAKE THEIR BILLIONS

Each of these companies is pretty unique in how they generate revenue, though there is some overlap:

• Facebook and Alphabet each make the vast majority of their revenues from advertising (97% and 88%, respectively)


• Apple makes 63% of their revenue from the iPhone, and another 21% coming from the iPad and Mac lines


• Amazon makes 90% from its “Product” and “Media” categories, and 9% from AWS


• Microsoft is diverse: Office (28%), servers (22%), Xbox (11%), Windows (9%), ads (7%), Surface (5%), and other (18%)

What does that look like?

Lastly, for fun, what if we added all these companies’ revenues together, and categorized them by source?

Note: this isn’t perfect. As an example, Amazon’s fast-growing advertising business gets lumped into their “Other” category.

Hardware, e-commerce, and and advertising make up 76% of all revenues.

Meanwhile, software isn’t the cash cow it used to be, but it does help serve as a means to an end for some companies. For example, Android doesn’t generate any revenue directly, but it does allow more users to buy apps in the Play Store and to search Google via their mobile devices. Likewise, Apple bundles in operating systems with each hardware purchase.

Snowden: What The Wikileaks Revelations Show Is "Reckless Beyond Words"

While it has been superficially covered by much of the press - and one can make the argument that what Julian Assange has revealed is more relevant to the US population, than constant and so far unconfirmed speculation that Trump is a puppet of Putin - the fallout from the Wikileaks" "Vault 7" release this morning of thousands of documents demonstrating the extent to which the CIA uses backdoors to hack smartphones, computer operating systems, messenger applications and internet-connected televisions, will be profound.

As evidence of this, the WSJ cites an intelligence source who said that "the revelations were far more significant than the leaks of Edward Snowden."

Mr. Snowden’s leaks revealed names of programs, companies that assist the NSA in surveillance and in some cases the targets of American spying. But the recent leak purports to contain highly technical details about how surveillance is carried out. That would make them far more revealing and useful to an adversary, this person said. In one sense, Mr. Snowden provided a briefing book on U.S. surveillance, but the CIA leaks could provide the blueprints.

Speaking of Snowden, the former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower, who now appears to have a "parallel whisteblower" deep inside the "Deep State", i.e., the source of the Wikileaks data - also had some thoughts on today"s CIA dump.

In a series of tweets, Snowden notes that "what @Wikileaks has here is genuinely a big deal", and makes the following key observations "If you"re writing about the CIA/@Wikileaks story, here"s the big deal: first public evidence USG secretly paying to keep US software unsafe" and adds that "the CIA reports show the USG developing vulnerabilities in US products, then intentionally keeping the holes open. Reckless beyond words."

He then asks rhetorically "Why is this dangerous?" and explains "Because until closed, any hacker can use the security hole the CIA left open to break into any iPhone in the world."

His conclusion, one which many of the so-called conspiratorial bent would say was well-known long ago: "Evidence mounts showing CIA & FBI knew about catastrophic weaknesses in the most-used smartphones in America, but kept them open -- to spy."

To which the increasingly prevalent response has become: "obviously."

Still working through the publication, but what @Wikileaks has here is genuinely a big deal. Looks authentic.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

If you"re writing about the CIA/@Wikileaks story, here"s the big deal: first public evidence USG secretly paying to keep US software unsafe. pic.twitter.com/kYi0NC2mOp

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

The CIA reports show the USG developing vulnerabilities in US products, then intentionally keeping the holes open. Reckless beyond words.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

Why is this dangerous? Because until closed, any hacker can use the security hole the CIA left open to break into any iPhone in the world. https://t.co/xK0aILAdFI

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

Evidence mounts showing CIA & FBI knew about catastrophic weaknesses in the most-used smartphones in America, but kept them open -- to spy. https://t.co/mDyVred3H8

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017