Six tech giants per second: who takes in the most, and who keeps it

Between them, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Meta reported $2,284.6 billion of revenue in their latest financial years. Spread evenly across 31,536,000 seconds, that is $72,443 a second. Their combined net income came to a little under 28 cents of every dollar that came in.

The counters on this site show revenue, because revenue is what each company reports as its top line and what its citation points to. But revenue and profit rank these six companies in very different orders, and the difference says more about each business than either number alone.

Revenue per second

Amazon is first by a wide margin: $716.9 billion of net sales for 2025, or $22,733 a second. Apple follows with $416.2 billion for its fiscal year to 27 September 2025, $13,196 a second, and Alphabet is close behind with $402.8 billion for 2025, $12,774 a second.

Microsoft reported $331.8 billion for its fiscal year to 30 June 2026, $10,521 a second. NVIDIA reported $215.9 billion for its fiscal year to 25 January 2026, $6,846 a second, and Meta $200.97 billion for 2025, $6,373 a second. On this measure Amazon takes in about three and a half times as much as Meta every second.

Profit per second

Rank the same six by net income and the table reshuffles. Microsoft is first with $133.7 billion, $4,241 a second, and Alphabet a close second with $132.2 billion, $4,191 a second. NVIDIA is third with $120.1 billion, $3,807 a second, and Apple fourth with $112.0 billion, $3,552 a second.

Amazon drops from first to fifth, with $77.7 billion of net income, or $2,463 a second. Meta is last with $60.5 billion, $1,917 a second. The company that takes in the most money per second keeps less of it, in absolute terms, than four of the other five.

Cents kept from each dollar

Dividing one figure by the other gives the share of revenue that ends up as net income. NVIDIA keeps about 56 cents of every dollar, Microsoft 40, Alphabet 33, Meta 30, Apple 27 and Amazon 11. The spread follows the kind of business each one runs more than its size.

NVIDIA's revenue is about 91% data-centre chips, sold at a gross margin of 71.1%, and it does not own the factories that make them. Microsoft and Alphabet sell software, cloud capacity and advertising, where one more customer costs little to serve. Apple sells hardware, which carries lower margins than its Services business. Amazon's revenue is dominated by retail — buying, storing and delivering goods, where margins are thin — while Amazon Web Services supplies most of its operating income from less than a fifth of its sales.

Meta is a special case in 2025. Its revenue grew 22%, yet its net income fell, because of a tax charge rather than anything in the advertising business. An earlier piece on this site goes through the filing line by line. Net income is the figure most exposed to one-off items like this, which is one reason the counters here use revenue.

Not quite the same twelve months

The six figures do not cover the same period. Amazon, Alphabet and Meta report calendar years, so theirs is 2025. Apple's year ended on 27 September 2025 and NVIDIA's on 25 January 2026. Microsoft's ended on 30 June 2026, so half of it falls in 2026 — it is the most recent figure in the table by five months or more.

For fast-growing companies that matters. NVIDIA's revenue rose 65% in its latest year and Microsoft's 18%, so a comparison against a year that ended months earlier flatters whichever company reported last. Each company page on this site gives the exact end date of the year it uses.

What the per-second counters can support

A revenue counter shows how much money flows through a company, not how much it makes. Amazon's counter ticks faster than any other on this site, and for every $22,733 it shows, about $2,463 remains after costs and tax. For Microsoft, the equivalent is $10,521 in and $4,241 kept.

Neither number is cash in the bank, and neither is spread evenly across the year in reality: advertising peaks before the holidays, and enterprise software deals cluster at the end of quarters. The even rate is a way to compare scale. To check any figure here, each source link goes to the company's 10-K on SEC EDGAR, where the revenue and net income lines appear in the consolidated statement of income.