Spatial concentration of world IT companies

Abstract

The article analyses the spatial concentration of world IT companies. They have been described in terms of their varied potential, types and extent of activity and the degree of global concentration. Research included the world’s top 100 largest IT companies, which jointly receive a revenue of USD 1.2 trillion, turning a profit of USD 140 billion. The revenue of the different companies ranged from USD 524.7 million to USD 97.0 billion. The leaders among those businesses are IBM Corporation, Verizon Communications, Deutsche Telekom and Samsung Electronics, which concentrate USD 313.0 billion, that is 25.9 per cent of the total revenue that the largest IT corporations receive. The joint profit of all the analysed IT companies is USD 140.1 billion and it ranges from USD 12.4 million to 11.2 billion. The corporations that make the highest profit are Microsoft, Samsung Electronics and IBM, which jointly earn USD 28.9 billion, which makes up 20.6 per cent of total profit. The analysed corporations are marked by a strong correlation between the revenue and profit ─ its index is 0.832.The analysed enterprises represent 8 types of business in the IT sector: telecommunication, hardware, software, semiconductors, telecommunication devices, services, distributors and Internet companies. The leaders among them are 24 telecommunication companies, whose joint revenue is USD 428.2 billion, that is 35.4 per cent of the total income, and the profit is USD 46.5 billion, that is 33.2 per cent of total profit.The United States has a high concentration of IT companies, 44 of which have reached 43.4 per cent of total revenue and 49.7 per cent of total profit. Companies located in Korea, Germany and Taiwan yield very high revenue and profit. Sixty-three companies from those four countries jointly yield USD 805.7 billion, that is 66.6 per cent of revenue, and USD 94.5 billion, that is 67.5 per cent of total profit. The least important in this respect are the companies located in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Turkey, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Indonesia, which jointly concentrate USD 22.5 billion, that is 1.9 per cent of revenue and USD 2.7 billion, that is 1.9 per cent of total profit.