Amazon, Alphabet and Walmart Were Top IT Spenders in 2018
January 17 2019 - 3:22PM
Dow Jones News
By Kim S. Nash
Amazon.com Inc. spent more than $13.6 billion on technology in
2018, making it the biggest corporate IT spender in the world,
according to new research from International Data Corp. Google
parent Alphabet Inc. and Walmart Inc. were in second and third
place, respectively, with each spending nearly $12 billion last
year on software, hardware, services, telecommunications equipment
and staff, IDC says.
Servers and other data-center infrastructure account for much of
Amazon's and Google's spending as they build cloud services to sell
to other companies often seeking to decrease their own IT budgets,
says David Lantsman, research manager for customer insights and
analysis at IDC.
In 2018, the top 10 companies accounted for 7% of the estimated
$1.1 trillion spent by the 4,800 firms IDC tracks.
Walmart, the only retailer in the top 10, has been spending
heavily on technology to improve its supply chain, e-commerce and
logistics services, said Jeremy King, executive vice president and
chief technology officer at Walmart, speaking with CIO Journal's
Sara Castellanos on stage at the National Retail Federation
conference in New York on Sunday.
Mr. King said IDC's estimate, $11.7 billion dollars for 2018,
included spending in hand-held technologies, registers and robots,
among other areas. He said Walmart will shell out more this year.
For instance, Walmart will expand use of robotics in warehouses and
stores, integrated with inventory and other systems, he said.
He said Walmart expanded its technology team by about 1,700
technologists in 2018 and expects to add another 2,000 this year,
he said. "We are expanding technology investment rapidly."
Amazon's growing cloud business requires an ever-growing number
of computer servers, Mr. Lantsman said. Amazon leads the public
cloud services market as Google and Microsoft Corp. fight to catch
up, as CIO Journal reported in October.
"They're spending gobs and gobs of money building out these
computing platforms across entire world," Mr. Lantsman said.
Banks also were big spenders, including JPMorgan Chase &
Co., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. Cybersecurity
and digital banking tools are notable investment areas for banks,
Mr. Lantsman said.
Write to Kim S. Nash at kim.nash@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 17, 2019 15:07 ET (20:07 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Walmart (NYSE:WMT)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Walmart (NYSE:WMT)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024