Technology
How Do Big Tech Giants Make Their Billions?
How Do Big Tech Giants Make Their Billions?
In 2021, the Big Five tech giants—Apple, Amazon, Google (Alphabet), Meta, and Microsoft—generated a combined $1.4 trillion in revenue.
What are the sources of this revenue, and how does it breakdown?
Below, we’ll dive into the main ways that these big tech giants generate revenue, and take a look at how much their revenues have increased in recent years.
Breaking Down Big Tech’s Revenue Streams
As we’ve mentioned in previous editions of this graphic, there are two main ways that big tech companies generate revenue:
- They either sell you a product
- Or sell you as the product to advertisers
Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon fall into the first category—like most traditional businesses, these companies offer customers a physical (or digital) product in exchange for money. More than half of Apple’s revenue comes from iPhone sales, Azure cloud services generate almost a third of Microsoft’s total, and Amazon’s online stores account for nearly 50% of the company’s revenue.
On the other hand, Meta and Alphabet do things a bit differently. Rather than selling an actual product, these two tech giants make most of their money by selling their audience’s attention. Nearly 98% of Meta’s revenue comes from Facebook ads, and 81% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising on various Google products.
However, despite their varying ways of generating sales, these companies all have one thing in common: revenues have soared in recent years.
The Pandemic Has Sped Up Growth
Amidst rising unemployment and pandemic-induced chaos, the Big Five still managed to see a significant revenue uptick.
In 2019 (pre-pandemic), big tech’s combined revenue grew by 12%. The following year, throughout the onset of the global pandemic and the various economic challenges that came with it, big tech still increased its combined revenue by 19%.
And in the 2021 fiscal year, big tech saw a 27% growth in combined revenue, year-over-year.
Company | Revenue (FY 2020) | Revenue (FY 2021) | Growth (YoY) |
---|---|---|---|
Apple | $274.5 billion | $365.8 billion | 33% |
Amazon | $386.1 billion | $469.8 billion | 22% |
Alphabet | $182.5 billion | $257.6 billion | 41% |
Microsoft | $143.1 billion | $168.1 billion | 17% |
Meta | $86.0 billion | $117.9 billion | 37% |
Combined | $1.1 trillion | $1.4 trillion | 27% |
How did these companies continue to thrive throughout economic turmoil and global chaos? It was made possible because the societal changes triggered by COVID-19 ended up driving demand for big tech’s products and services.
For example, lockdown restrictions forced people to shop online, causing e-commerce sales to escalate. Demand for laptops and cloud-based services grew as offices shut down and companies pivoted to fully remote workspaces.
Is Growth Here to Stay?
These days, COVID-19 restrictions have eased in most countries, and the world has slowly returned to normalcy.
But that doesn’t mean growth for big tech will stop. In fact, the pandemic-induced changes to our work and shopping habits will likely stick around, meaning the increased demand for big tech’s offerings could be here to stay.
Two-thirds of employees from a global survey said their company would likely make remote work a permanent option. And global e-commerce sales are expected to grow steadily over the next few years to reach $7 trillion by 2025.
Technology
Ranked: Largest Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
Most of the 10 largest semiconductor foundries in the world, are headquartered in just three Asian countries, accounting for 90% of the entire industry’s revenue.

Ranked: Largest Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
They’re in our phones, cars, planes, and even fridges.
Semiconductor chips have become critical for the modern way of life, and the biggest semiconductor foundry companies rake in billions of dollars from widespread demand.
This chart shows the largest semiconductor foundry companies by their percentage of global revenues in Q1 2023, using data sourced from Trendforce.
Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
At the top of the list and dwarfing every other company by revenue share is TSMC which earned 60% (or nearly $17 billion) of the entire industry’s revenue in Q1 2023.
Founded in 1987, TSMC is a pure-play foundry that has become Taiwan’s largest company and manufactures products for a host of clients including Apple, NVIDIA, and AMD.
Rank | Company | Country | Revenue (Q1 2023, USD) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | TSMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $16,735M |
2 | Samsung | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $3,446M |
3 | GlobalFoundries | 🇺🇸 US | $1,841M |
4 | UMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $1,784M |
5 | SMIC | 🇨🇳 China | $1,462M |
6 | HuaHong Group | 🇨🇳 China | $845M |
7 | Tower Semiconductor | 🇮🇱 Israel | $356M |
8 | PSMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $332M |
9 | VIS | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $269M |
10 | DB Hitek | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $234M |
Other | $556M | ||
Global Total | $27,860M |
Note: Revenue based on the following conversion rates: USD 1 = WON 1,276; USD 1 = NTD 30.4.
Well behind TSMC in foundry revenues is integrated device manufacturer Samsung, the biggest company in South Korea, which made $3.4 billion (12.4% of the industry’s revenue) from its semiconductor manufacturing business.
GlobalFoundries from the U.S., UMC from Taiwan and SMIC from China round out the top five, with each taking home around 6% of industry’s revenue share in Q1 2023. The former spun out from AMD’s manufacturing arm when the company went fabless in 2009.
Industry concentration is apparent in semiconductors. For example, the top 10 semiconductor foundry companies account for 98% of the entire industry’s revenue. Furthermore, 90% of the market is dominated by companies in just three Asian countries: Taiwan, South Korea, and China.
-
Education5 days ago
Ranked: America’s Best Universities
-
Technology1 week ago
Ranked: Largest Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
-
Misc1 week ago
Visualized: EV Market Share in the U.S.
-
Maps1 week ago
Interactive Map: The World as 1,000 People
-
Retail1 week ago
Ranked: Average Black Friday Discounts for Major Retailers
-
Business1 week ago
Ranked: Fast Food Brands with the Most U.S. Locations
-
Markets1 week ago
Visualizing 30 Years of Imports from U.S. Trading Partners
-
Revenue1 week ago
Ranked: The Biggest Retailers in the U.S. by Revenue