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Online revenue models of the biggest digital brands

Author's avatar By Dave Chaffey 27 Nov, 2017
Essential Essential topic

Chart of the Day: How do Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon make their money?

In this article, I defined Eight online revenue models along with how they are calculated, so they could be applied to new revenue models of startups.

In this chart of the day, we can see a comparison of the four / five dominant digital brands sometimes known as GAFA of FAMGA or even the frightful five.

Of these five digital businesses, it's no surprise to see that Alphabet (Google companies including their research and development) and Facebook are dominated by ad sales. Apple sales are dominated by product sales with iPhone much more important that Mac laptops and iPad. Data services like iTunes and storage are still relatively small (11%).

Amazon is different to the other four in that it focuses on online retail, yet this is less than 75% of sales showing its success in diversification to media (18%) and Amazon Web Services (9%). Microsoft has the most diverse revenue from both software, hardware and media. With 22% from Windows Server and Azure, Microsoft is successful in B2B services also.

Research source

 

Author's avatar

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. Dave is editor of the 100+ templates, ebooks and courses in the digital marketing resource library created by our team of 25+ digital marketing experts. Our resources are used by our Premium members in more than 100 countries to Plan, Manage and Optimize their digital marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is a keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.

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