Samsung Electronics Co. has ranked No. 4 among 1,000 major global companies in terms of spending on research and development over the past one-year period, a report showed Thursday.

The South Korean tech juggernaut spent $15.3 billion on R&D projects over the period beginning in the second half of last year, retaining the No. 4 spot for two years running, according to a report from global accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The amount was up 6.8 percent from the same period a year earlier and accounted for 6.8 percent of Samsung's sales.

U.S. online commerce giant Amazon topped the list with $22.6 billion, followed by Alphabet Inc., Google's holding company., with $16.2 billion. German automaker Volkswagen placed third with $15.8 billion.

Intel's R&D spending rose 2.6 percent on-year to $13.1 billion, dropping to fifth place from third. Microsoft came next with $12.3 billion won, trailed by Apple with $11.6 billion.

The combined R&D expenditures of the 1,000 firms climbed 11.4 percent on-year to a record high of $782 billion over the cited period, taking up 40 percent of the global total.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics ranked as the sixth most innovative company in the world in a PwC survey of 869 CEOs and executives across the world. Apple, Amazon and Alphabet retained the top three spots for the second consecutive year. (Yonhap)