According to McKinsey, pharmaceuticals are traditionally known for R&D spending, but these days, high tech, automotive, and consumer sectors invest even more – greater than 20% of earnings EBITDA.
Amazon’s research and development programs amounted to 11.1% of net sales in 2020, Alphabet laid out 15.1% of revenue, and Huawei invested 15.9% of revenue. In 2019, companies spent $2.3 trillion on R&D globally – around 2% of global GDP. Annual R&D investment has grown at around 4% a year since 2010.