Google R&D spend increases by 73 per cent

ACCORDING TO figures put together by the FT, Intel, Texas Instruments and Sun all showed negative growth in their R&D spend in 2007. The newspaper claims that Sun was even forced to hand development of its Sparc processor over to Fujitsu.

The figures looked at percentage increase in R&D spends on a year on year basis. It appears that Intel spent two per cent less on R&D in 2007 against 2006, while Sun's spend declined 1.9 per cent and Texas Instruments was down by 1.8 per cent.

It should be remembered that all this was during a period when total revenues weren't declining but actually increasing.

HP increased its spend by a mere 0.6 per cent, but then it spent only $3.7 billion on R&D with revenues of $104.3 billion. Intel was spending $5.8 billion on revenues of $38.3 billion.

The greatest puzzle is Motorola which had revenues of $36.6 billion and spent $4.4 billion on R&D – an increase of 7.9 per cent. So, what happened to all the new mobile phone designs then?

Of all the top US high tech companies which the FT looked at, Google took the biscuit. It spent $2.1 billion on R&D from revenues of $16.6 billion which represented a year on year increase of a massive 73.3 per cent.

Hmm. Was this on Android or the reputedly non-existent Google phone, the INQ wonders? µ

L'Inq
Financial Times