Over the past decade leading tech companies—notably Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft—have come to dominate their respective segments in most parts of the world. Some stats: Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has 3.5 billion users across its networks. More than 50% of global online ad spending goes through Meta or Alphabet. In search, Google has more than a 60% share in the United States and more than 90% in Europe, Brazil, and India. Apple earns more in annual profit than Starbucks makes in revenue. Microsoft is a top-three vendor to 84% of businesses. And Amazon takes in more than 40% of online spending in the United States and runs nearly one-third of the internet through Amazon Web Services. Collectively, the Big Five earned income of about $197 billion on revenue of more than $1 trillion in 2020, while their market cap rose to $7.5 trillion by year’s end.
A version of this article appeared in the January–February 2022 issue of Harvard Business Review.
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