While other companies cut back on spending as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last year, ecommerce giant Amazon boosted its domestic capital investments by 75% to nearly $34 billion—and helped set the stage for a robust economic recovery, according to aA truck carries a trailer with the Amazon logo outside the Amazon.com, Inc.
In Amazon’s case, the extra investment on property and equipment last year was driven by the need to meet an enormous surge of demand during the pandemic, the report notes.Verizon was second on PPI’s list with $16.1 billion in domestic capital investment last year, AT&T was third on the list with $15.6 billion invested, and Alphabet and Intel rounded out the top five with $14 billion and $12.5 billion invested, respectively.
“The willingness of these companies to keep spending essentially made it possible for large chunks of the economy to move forward despite the pandemic,” the report states.Despite its major investments in the U.S. economy last year, Amazon’s business practices have also been the target of criticism. The firm was recently