Alibaba among top R&D spenders

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd was included in the world's top 10 most innovative companies, the first time for a Chinese company, according to the results of a survey released in Shanghai on Thursday.

The survey by PwC Strategy&, a consultancy services provider, which polled 562 global executives on research and development, said that China's companies were among the world's top 1,000 R&D spenders (all are public companies), spending a total of $45.2 billion, or 6.4 percent of the worldwide total in 2017.

Alibaba spent $2.5 billion for an R&D intensity of 10.8 percent, a measurement that calculates spending on research and development related to sales revenue. The average intensity of the world's top 1,000 was below 5 percent. It was ranked in 10th place among the world's most innovative companies.