On the Stock Exchange, at the end of last year the 25 largest companies in the software and web industries (WebSoft) were worth 8 times Piazza Affari. It is the result of a dizzying surge: between 2014 and 2018 the average annual growth of these titles he achieved the 19,8% and in November of this year theirs total market value exceeded five billion euros. By now – even taken individually – Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet (Google's parent company) are worth more than Borsa Italiana.
The data is contained in an analysis by the Mediobanca Studies Area, according to which last year the WebSoft giants produced a turnover of 850 billion euros, with an annual growth of 20,3% since 2014, more than six times that of manufacturing multinationals (3,1%).
The same companies at the end of 2018 they employed just under two million people, almost double compared to four years earlier, an increase linked above all to the large number of acquisitions which has dramatically increased the concentration in the WebSoft sectors.
Solo in Italy, these groups had a turnover of over 2,4 billion in 2018, employing more than 9.800 workers.
Going back to the global numbers, last year the WebSoft giants produced profits for 110 billioni, while if the perspective is extended to five years the profits reach a 413 billion, of which 82 generated by Alphabet, 78 by Microsoft and 48 by Facebook.
About half of WebSoft's pre-tax profit is taxed in countries a facilitated taxation, resulting in cumulative tax savings of over $49 billion in 2014-2018. The effective tax rate of the WebSoft multinationals is 14,1%, well below the nominal rate of 22,5%. In the period 2014-2018, taxation in countries with low taxation led to cumulative tax savings for Apple of almost 25 billion. In Italy, in 2018 the subsidiaries of the WebSoft giants poured to the taxman 64 million (59 million in 2017) and paid fines totaling 39 million (73 million in 2017).
For patrimonial, in 2018 the WebSofts rest on a solid foundation, with tangible equity equal on average to 1,1 times the financial debts. They stand out Facebook and the Japanese Nintendo, who have no financial debt.
At the end of the same year WebSoft held 507 billion of liquidity, equal to over a third of total assets (three times more than the average of a multinational). 22% of total assets (305 billion) were invested in short-term securities (about half are US government bonds), a percentage slightly higher than that of the major European and American banks (21%) and by far that of the other multinationals (3%).
From 2014 to 2018, WebSoft's liquidity increased by an average of about 49 billion each year and was mainly used to buy minor companies and treasury shares: in 2018 buybacks exceeded those of 2014 by four times, reaching 78 billion.
