Thursday, November 13, 2014

ISPs Represent 30% of Total U.S. Domestic Capex by the Top 25 Firms

Leading telcos, cable companies and application providers were clearly among the U.S. firms making the biggest 2013 domestic capital investments, according to the Progressive Policy Institute.

A study of the top 25 firms with the highest domestic capital investment shows 2013 capital investments of $152.5 billion. Of the top 25 firms, number one was AT&T, which invested $21 billion. Number two was Verizon, which invested $15.4 billion.

Intel ranked seventh, committing $8.4 billion to domestic capex.

Comcast was seventh, investing $6.6 billion. Google was 12th, spending $4.7 billion. Apple ranked 15th, investing $3.8 billion.

Time Warner Cable was ranked 21, spending $3.2 billion in 2013. Microsoft, ranked 23rd out of 25, made an outlay of $3 billion. Amazon, at 25th position, invested $2.6 billion.

So when five of the top 25 say a new proposed change in regulation will cause a slowdown in domestic capital investment, that is a non-trivial matter, as would be the case if Google, Apple Intel and Microsoft were to argue that a proposed regulatory change would choke off their investment.

In fact, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner represent 30 percent of 2013 domestic capital investment made by the top 25 firms, investing $46.2 billion.

The software firms--Google, Amazon, Microsoft--invested $10.3 billion, or nearly seven percent of domestic capex by the top 25 U.S. firms.

Apple and Intel invested $12.2 billion, representing eight percent of domestic capex by the top 25 firms.

One might simply note it is a big deal if new regulations slow down investment by the ISPs that represent 30 percent of total capex by the top 25 U.S. firms.

Over a three-year period, AT&T ranked first of 10, investing $60.5 billion. Verizon was second at $46.6 billion. Intel ranked sixth at $24.6 billion. Comcast was ninth at $17.6 billion. No app or device suppliers made the list of the top 10.

No comments:

Many Winners and Losers from Generative AI

Perhaps there is no contradiction between low historical total factor annual productivity gains and high expected generative artificial inte...