Apple top vendor in IT revenue, followed by Samsung

By Anuj Sharma - June 20, 2017
Apple
Apple was the largest vendor with over $218 billion in IT revenue — approximately $79 billion larger than Samsung, market research firm Gartner has said.  For the first time, Gartner has published ....

Apple was the largest vendor with over $218 billion in IT revenue — approximately $79 billion larger than Samsung, market research firm Gartner has said.   

Samsung with $139 billion in IT revenue stood second, Google with $90.1 billion was third, Microsoft with $85.7 billion was at fourth spot, and IBM with $77.8 billion stood at fifth position.

The top three vendors Apple, Samsung Vendor Group and Google can attribute much of their size to their solid alignment with the Nexus of Forces.

Microsoft has grown to market leadership during the web and e-business phase, and has managed to pivot to remain relevant.

IBM gained its size and market dominance in the very earliest IT markets when servers, storage and consulting services dominated.

As enterprises increasingly digitalise their products and services, digital giants (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) can become involved in, or even take over, the digital experience.

Gartner predicts that by 2021, 20 percent of all activities an individual engages in will involve at least one of the top seven digital giants.

Digital giants have effectively become gatekeepers for any business that delivers digital content and services to consumers and any company that wants to engage consumers in, or through, their digital world will have to consider engaging with one or more of these digital giants.

The focus of the digital giants has mainly been in the consumer, citizen and employee world. Because the digital giants have not yet been as focused on business to business (B2B), there is opportunity for other companies to take the lead.

In the B2B world of selling technology solutions to large enterprises, some of the digital giants have already had significant impact.

For example, Amazon Web Services' cloud is disrupting enterprise hardware and software businesses dramatically. Apple's iOS devices are dominant within enterprise mobility, and Google's presence beyond search into browsers, cloud office and more is growing.

For the first time, Gartner has published a ranking of the top 100 largest tech companies in the world based on estimates for their revenue across IT (excluding communication services) and component market segments.

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  • Samsung
  • Google
  • Microsoft
  • IBM