Google Will have twice the Research and Development Budget of DARPA in 2012

Google research budget will be twice as large as DARPA in 2012

Google will be spending about $6 billion on research and development in 2012

Google reported revenues of $10.65 billion for the first quarter which ended March 31, 2012, an increase of 24% compared to the first quarter of 2011 ($8.58 billion). But minus traffic acquisition costs, Google pulled in $8.14 billion in revenue. Google spent about $1.5 billion on research and development. Google spent about 18% of revenue (after traffic acquisition) on research and development.

In the last quarter of 2011, top US public companies for R&D spending were:

Microsoft $2.517 billion
Intel $2.401 billion
IBM $1.6 billion
Google $1.44 billion
Oracle $1.226 billion
Apple $842 million

Darpa has an annual budget of about $3.2 billion which is a quarterly budget of $800 million.

Microsoft and Intel are each over three times the R&D budget of DARPA.
I expect Google to increase its R&D to match its 24% growth. This should put Google ahead of IBM in R&D spending in 2012. If Google is able to maintain growth then in 2014 it could have the largest R&D spending.

Intel, IBM and Microsoft have had relatively little revenue growth. Microsoft did have about 4.5-6% revenue growth in its first quarter. Intel and IBM have had flat revenue.

Internet advertising is still projected to grow in the double digits each year.

Batelle has its annual global research and development funding forecast for 2012

The Battelle-R&D Magazine annual Global R&D Funding Forecast released today shows global research and development (R&D) spending is expected to grow by about 5.2 percent in 2012 to more than $1.4 trillion.

Experts from Battelle and R&D Magazine forecast that a 2.1 percent growth in United States R&D expenditures will be balanced against an estimated 2 percent inflation rate, suggesting that U.S. R&D investments will remain flat in real terms over the next year. That $436 billion in forecasted spending is expected to be broken down in the following way:

* U.S. Private Industry will spend by far the largest amount with a projection of $279.6 billion in R&D in 2012, up 3.75 percent over 2011.

*U.S. Federal Government spending will reach $125.6 billion in 2012, a decrease of 1.16 percent.

* Academia in the U.S. will spend $12 billion on research in 2012, up 2.85 percent over last year.

* Non-profits will increase spending in 2012 by 2.7 percent to $14.5 billion and other government entities in the U.S. will round out total R&D expenditures by increasing 2.72 percent to $3.8 billion.

During the past two years, ICT-related manufacturing has been particularly volatile, with leading companies experiencing commercial dynamics following the introduction of new products arising from R&D decisions. Despite these fluctuations the United States’ R&D spending in the ICT industry is forecast to increase by 9.9 percent, reaching $138.8 billion in 2012. This U.S. growth helps drive an overall global ICT industry growth of 4.1 percent to $238.5 billion.

Google’s Research is not yet translating to lots of Patents

The top 50 companies in terms of patents assigned in 2011.


Rank  Grants  Company Name                       Country
1     6180    International Business Machines Corp   United States
2     4894    Samsung Electronics Co Ltd KR          Korea
3     2821    Canon K K JP                           Japan
4     2559    Panasonic Corp JP                      Japan
5     2483    Toshiba Corp JP                        Japan
6     2311    Microsoft Corp                         United States
7     2286    Sony Corp JP                           Japan
8     1533    Seiko Epson Corp JP                    Japan
9     1514    Hon Hai Precision (Foxconn)            Taiwan
10    1465    Hitachi Ltd JP                         Japan
11    1448    General Electric Co                    United States
12    1411    LG Electronics Inc KR                  Korea
13    1391    Fujitsu Ltd JP                         Japan
14    1308    Hewlett-Packard Development Co L P     United States
15    1248    Ricoh Co Ltd JP                        Japan
16    1244    Intel Corp                             United States
17    1164    Broadcom Corp                          United States
18    1095    GM Global Technology Operations LLC    United States
19    1005    Renesas Electronics Corp JP            Japan
20     997    Honda Motor Co Ltd JP                  Japan

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