The big Silicon Valley Tech Companies had a hugely successful 2020, prompting more questions about their overwhelming dominance in financial and business terms. From san francisco, James Clayton reports. There have been winners and losers from this pandemic, and some of the biggest winners are also some of the Richest Companies in the world, based around san francisco. Take here at apple, last week, the Company Posted record Quarterly Sales of more than £80 billion. At that rate, during this 2. 5 minute news report, apple will have done 1. 5 million worth of sales. Big tech has had an astonishingly profitable pandemic. We all turned to technology more during the pandemic. Its as simple as that. We were doing more things online than ever before, from gaming to shopping, to seeing our doctor, you know, theyre not charities. Laughter you know, they are making money out of, you know, what theyre enabling. But some believe that making so much money at a time of Economic Hardship shows that
The tech giants in the us are dominating the business agenda today. Jeff bezos is stepping down as amazons Chief Executive. The Online Retail giants founder will move to become the compa ny s executive chairman. He will be replaced as ceo by andy jassy, the current boss of amazons Cloud Computing business. And this comes as the firm reported 386 billion in sales in 2020, thats up 38 on the year before. Their profits almost doubled, rising to 21. 3 billion. So whats been the reaction to the news bezos is stepping to the side, and what do we know about the new boss . Duncan howe is e commerce strategist at cheil uk, which is a Digital Marketing and advertising agency. Duncan, welcome to the programme. Executive chair man still means he will have a lot of control and very much involved in and is on, but it is the day to day responsibility. What do you think about this move . I responsibility. What do you think about this move . I think it is a bit of think about this move . I think it is
Within the business community, there is a growing chorus of voices who are realizing that theyre operating on a very unfair playing field. President biden is also reportedly considering hiring an Antitrust Tsar to look into monopolies in tech. Other senior democrats have even called for Companies Like google and facebook to be split up. Big tech has had a bumper year, but Withjoe Biden as president , theyre likely to face more and more scrutiny. Should so much power and wealth be concentrated in the hands ofjust a few companies on the west coast of america . James clayton, bbc news. A reminder of our main story this evening the news that captain sir tom moore has died at the age of 100. Hed been treated for pneumonia and had tested positive for coronavirus. Sir tom raised tens of millions of pounds for Nhs Charities by walking in his garden before his 100th birthday. In a moment, well have the news where you are, but well leave you tonight with some memories of a remarkable man. When y