Apple and Google logo. (Photo = Yonhap news)

 

[Alpha Biz= Reporter Paul Lee] Four U.S.-based "Big Tech" companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Meta) have posted sales of 9 trillion won and operating profit of 600 billion won over the past year in Korea.

According to an audit report released on the Financial Supervisory Service's Electronic Disclosure System (DART) on the 21st, sales and operating profit of Apple Korea, which settled in September, recorded 7.524 trillion won and 559.9 billion won from October 2022 to September last year, respectively. The figure is up 2.6 percent and 550 percent, respectively, from a year earlier. It is analyzed as the best performance ever due to the preference of iPhones in the 10s and 20s in Korea.

Microsoft Korea (MS Korea), a settlement corporation in June, posted sales of 1.3698 trillion won and operating profit of 63.9 billion won from July 2022 to June last year.

Last year's sales of Google Korea and Facebook Korea, which were settled in December, were 365.3 billion won and 65.1 billion won, respectively.

Combining the four companies, sales amounted to 9.3242 trillion won and operating profit amounted to 662.1 billion won over the past year.

According to mobile index data from mobile big data company IGAWorks, Google-run YouTube had 45.52 million monthly active users (MAU) that used the service more than once last month. It has been number one for four consecutive months since December last year. Google Chrome Browser and Google Portal also ranked fourth and seventh with 36.02 million and 29.92 million, respectively. Combining the three apps, it exceeds 111 million people.

This is 2.5 times higher than MAU 2's KakaoTalk (44.97 million people). Even if Naver (43.02 million), the top 10 Naver-related apps, and Naver Map (24.85 million), the ninth-ranked apps, are combined, there are much more MAUs for Google-related apps.

However, many point out that the corporate tax costs of American Big Tech are extremely small. According to Google Korea's audit report, last year's corporate tax cost of Google Korea was about 15.5 billion won, which was only 3% of Naver (496.4 billion won). Due to the difference in method from tax accounting, corporate tax costs in audit reports differ from actual tax payments, but this is the same for domestic companies. Analysts say Google Korea's actual corporate tax ratio to Naver will remain at a single digit. The combined corporate tax cost of Google Korea, Google Cloud Korea, and Google Payment Korea was about 20.4 billion won, which was 4% of Naver.

Facebook Korea, Meta's domestic corporation with 4,500 MAU 3099s through Facebook and Instagram, spent 5,078.63 million won last year, which was only 1% of Naver's.

App market fees, the majority of domestic revenue, are excluded from Google Korea's sales as they are captured by Google Asia Pacific's sales. Experts pointed out that the Korean government should improve the way Google and Meta calculate sales and strengthen tax evasion investigations.

 

 

[ⓒ AlphaBIZ. 무단전재-재배포 금지]