Top 11 Leading Global Tech Companies

1. Amazon

Amazon is a US-based technology company founded in 1994 in Bellevue, Washington by Jeff Bezos, primarily focusing on e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. Today, Amazon is regarded as one of the top 4 giants in the world of technology, alongside Google, Apple, and Facebook.

Starting from selling books, Amazon has expanded into diverse fields from online book sales, providing videos, audio (mp3), audiobooks, to technology products such as software, games, clothing, food, jewelry, and more. From an online bookstore catering to buying and exchanging goods on the internet, after many years of development, Amazon has now become one of the leading multinational e-commerce companies worldwide.

Currently, “Amazon” has become one of the world's top online retail conglomerates famous worldwide, with sales accounting for approximately 44% of total e-commerce sales in the United States in 2017.

2. Samsung

Samsung is a colossal multinational conglomerate based in Samsung Town, Seocho District, Seoul, South Korea. The conglomerate owns numerous subsidiaries, retail chains, and representative offices worldwide, mostly operating under the brand name 'Samsung.' It's a giant chaebol conglomerate with a massive impact on the economy of South Korea and is also one of the most valuable technology brands globally.

Globally renowned for its consumer electronics division, Samsung has also seen success in various other sectors such as shipbuilding, aerospace engineering, life insurance, and more. The company currently operates in three primary technology sectors: consumer electronics, IT & mobile communications, and device solutions.

By the end of 2020, Samsung is regarded as Apple's biggest competitor in the smartphone and tablet market. In recent years, about 40% of Samsung's revenue has been related to the smartphone sector.

Apple is a multinational technology conglomerate based in Cupertino, California, specializing in designing, developing, and selling consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. It's considered one of the big five tech companies in the United States, alongside Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. The company's hardware product lines include the iPhone smartphone, iPad tablet, MacBook laptop, iMac desktop, iPod portable media player, and more.

Apple's total annual revenue worldwide reached $274.5 billion for the fiscal year 2020. Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue and one of the most valuable companies globally. It's also the third-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world after Samsung and Huawei.

In August 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion, and just two years later, in August 2020, it became the first company valued at $2 trillion. Apple employs 147,000 full-time employees and maintains 510 retail stores in 25 countries as of 2020. It operates the iTunes Store, the world's largest music retailer. As of January 2020, over 1.5 billion Apple products are actively used worldwide. The company also enjoys brand loyalty and is ranked as the world's most valuable brand.

Microsoft is a multinational conglomerate based in the United States founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, with its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, USA. The company specializes in developing, producing, and licensing software and supporting a wide range of computer-related products and services. Microsoft's primary products include mobile phones, electronic gaming, consumer electronics, online advertising, IT consulting, and many other feature-rich products.

In its early startup years, the company focused on building operating systems for home computers to make PC usage easier, friendlier, and more intuitive, which led to the creation of Windows.

Windows brought tremendous profits and remarkable reputation to the company at that time.

After the success with Windows, the company continued to expand its services and markets. By 2020, Microsoft was not only known for Windows 10 but also as a formidable player in other fields such as server operating systems, Surface devices, Microsoft 365 office applications, Azure cloud services, management and development tools, Xbox games,...

Especially in recent years, the Windows giant has also focused and invested heavily in innovative technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing,... striving to lead in this field.

Alphabet Inc. is a multinational conglomerate based in the United States, founded in 2015 under the guise of being the parent company of Google and other entities previously owned or tied to Google. The company is headquartered in California and led by Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with Page serving as CEO and Brin as chairman.

The reorganization of Google into Alphabet was completed on October 2, 2015. Alphabet's investment portfolio spans various industries, including technology, life sciences, venture capital, and research. Some of Alphabet's subsidiaries have changed names since separating from Google - Google Ventures became GV, Google Life Sciences became Verily, and Google X became X. Following the restructuring, Page became CEO of Alphabet while Sundar Pichai took over as CEO of Google. Google's stock shares were converted into Alphabet shares, with Google's former ticker symbols being 'GOOG' and 'GOOGL.'

The establishment of Alphabet as Google's parent company was proposed after the company's CEO felt that Google needed to be 'cleaner and more accountable.' Alphabet allows for better control over companies with non-core businesses unrelated to Google's original mission.

Facebook is an American social media and technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard University students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, initially as TheFacebook.com, it has become one of the world's most popular global social networking websites. It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies along with Amazon, Apple, and Google. Facebook is one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Facebook offers various products and services. It has acquired Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus and independently developed Facebook Messenger, Facebook Watch, and Facebook Portal.

Facebook is a rapidly growing enterprise, with over 2 billion daily active users, a figure that has reached a threshold and is difficult to increase. Therefore, this is perhaps why in recent years, the company has been expanding its business areas, especially through increased acquisitions of other companies.

Tencent Holdings is a Chinese investment corporation with subsidiaries providing media, entertainment, internet, and mobile value-added services, as well as operating online advertising services in China. The conglomerate owns the social media platform WeChat with over 1 billion users. The company is headquartered in Nanshan, Shenzhen, Guangdong.

The Chinese tech giant has expanded its operations further into other sectors including mobile gaming, mobile payments, and online music. All these business segments have helped Tencent achieve record profits in 2017. Additionally, Tencent is also heavily investing in other tech companies worldwide. It's known that Tencent holds a 5% stake in Tesla and a 12% stake in Snap, the parent company of the SnapChat app.

Recently, the company has also officially become the exclusive distributor of James Bond and Star Wars in China.

IBM is a multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. IBM was founded in 1911 in New York City, initially named Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) and changed to International Business Machines in 1924.

IBM is a leading contractor specializing in the manufacture and sale of computer hardware, software, infrastructure, server services, and consulting in various fields from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. With over 350,000 employees, IBM is the world's largest IT company. IBM has a team of engineers and consultants in 170 countries. IBM also has 8 research labs worldwide. IBM employees have won 5 Nobel Prizes, 5 Turing Awards - the Nobel Prize of Information Technology, and 5 National Technology Medals.

IBM holds more patents than any other technology company in the United States. They have engineers and consultants in over 70 countries, and IBM Research has 8 labs worldwide. IBM workers have won three Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Technology Medals, and five National Science Medals. As a CPU manufacturer, IBM is one of the top 20 semiconductor distributors in the world.

Intel Corporation was established on July 18, 1968, as a conglomerate in electronic devices manufacturing in Santa Clara, California, USA by chemist and physicist Gordon E. Moore and Robert Noyce, after they departed from Fairchild Semiconductor.

Intel manufactures products such as microprocessors for computers, motherboards, flash memory, network cards, and other computer devices. Intel is also the world's largest semiconductor device manufacturer, and is the inventor of the x86 microprocessor line found in personal computers. Intel produces motherboard chips, network cards, integrated circuits, memory chips, graphics chips, embedded processors, and other IT-related devices.

In 2005, Intel Corporation achieved a revenue of over 38 billion USD, ranking 50th among the world's largest companies. In 2020, Intel Corporation employed 110,600 personnel across all global offices and manufacturing facilities.

Oracle Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation based in Austin, Texas, USA. The company previously had its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California until December 2020 when it relocated its headquarters to Texas. The company sells software and database technology, cloud-designed systems, and enterprise software products. Particularly notable are its proprietary brands of database management systems.

In 2019, Oracle Corporation was the second-largest software company by revenue and market capitalization. The company also develops and builds tools for developing centralized database and software systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, human capital management (HCM) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and supply chain management (SCM) software.

Oracle is currently the world's second-largest software company, but is believed to have outbid Microsoft, their number one rival, in the TikTok acquisition race. Similar to Microsoft, Oracle also provides cloud infrastructure. However, Oracle doesn't even make the top 5 largest cloud infrastructure providers in the world by revenue, with Amazon currently leading and Microsoft coming in second according to Gartner statistics.

TSMC is the world's largest semiconductor manufacturing company, with its headquarters and main operations located in the Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

The company was founded in Taiwan in 1987, being the first semiconductor manufacturing company and has long become a leading company in the world in semiconductor manufacturing. In addition to semiconductors, the company has also started investing in industries related to lighting and solar energy. The company is listed on both the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. Morris Chang is the Chairman of the Board, FC Tseng is the Vice Chairman of the Board, Mark Liu and C.C. Wei are the company's co-CEOs.

The largest customers of TSMC include Apple, Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom Inc., Nvidia, and Qualcomm,… even Intel, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments collaborate with this company to manufacture some devices and components.

Furthermore, the success of TSMC comes from its unique business model – mutually beneficial. The company receives chip designs from chip manufacturers and creates corresponding products; thus, TSMC's products always perform well, ensuring quality and becoming the top choice for manufacturers.

TSMC has subsidiaries in China, Singapore, the United States, and offices in Europe, India, and Japan. The company's headquarters are currently located in Hsinchu, Taiwan.