We recently announced that Apple closed its fiscal year 2015 with a record total of $ 8.1 billion spending on research and development (R&D).
But the value, as pointed out by Bloomberg Business, still very small compared to what other technology giants invest at least considering the percentage in relation to the total revenue of the companies.
Companies like Google, Qualcomm and Facebook invest an absurdly larger share of their revenues in R&D. In the last year, Apple allocated 3.5% against 15%, 22% and 21%, respectively. In absolute figures, however, only Google and Alphabet were bigger than Apple: $ 9.2 billion.
With huge component purchases and long-term partnerships, Apple also "directs" part of that R&D investment to its own suppliers. In order to keep Ma as a customer in future generations of its products, they have been forced to develop more and more cutting-edge technologies and overcome technical challenges / limitations.
Apple historically reserves 2-3% of its revenue for R&D and continues to be seen as one of the most innovative companies on the market. Would it really make any difference if she could double that percentage?
(via Patently Apple)
