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As of October 2024, Alphabet was the biggest internet company worldwide with a market cap of over two trillion U.S. dollars Second-ranked Amazon had a market capitalization of 1.97 trillion U.S. dollars.
The end of the 1990s in the United States saw the rise of a great number of internet companies, also called online companies or a variety of the name “dot com,” where the “.com” domain is derived from the word commercial. At the time, such startups were merely riding the wave of early internet business, but had little capital and perhaps one good idea. Few companies have survived the burst of the dot com bubble and even fewer have managed to become internationally successful. A few notable exceptions are American companies such as Google (founded in 1998), Amazon (founded in 1994) or eBay Inc. (founded in 1995), and the Chinese online giant Alibaba (founded in 1998), which have come to be some of the largest internet companies in the world.
Topping the ranking of largest internet companies worldwide is currently Alphabet, the parent company of Google, with a market capitalization of 2 trillion U.S. dollars as of October 2024. Having started as a PhD project at Stanford University, the Google project slowly gained traction and is now the number one search engine in the world, with a market share of 86 percent on the search engine market. Due to a number of high profile acquisitions, Google has expanded its portfolio beyond search, to include the video content sharing site YouTube, the digital app platform Google Play Store, the webmail service Gmail and the web browser Google Chrome, to only name a few. As of May 2024, it is also the most visited multi-platform website in the United States, with almost 274 million U.S. unique visitors during that month alone. In October 2015, Google reorganized itself into a newly created parent company, the multinational conglomerate Alphabet Inc.
The biggest internet companies in terms of their workforce are currently Amazon, Alphabet and Meta.
On October 22, 2024, 'APT.' by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars was the most-streamed track on Spotify with 14.6 million streams worldwide, followed by 'Die With A Smile" by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, reaching over 11 million Spotify streams on Spotify that day. Billie Eilish's 'BIRDS OF A FEATHER' came third with just over 7.6 million streams.
Firstly, Spotify is one of the most successful and popular music streaming services in the United States, and as of the first half of 2018 had the biggest share of music streaming subscribers in the world. With Spotify’s vast audience, featuring on the platform is a good start for emerging and popular artists hoping to make an impact.
Secondly, there is no exact science to ‘going viral’. From the famous egg photo on Instagram posted in early 2019 to wildly successful music video ‘Gangnam Style’ released back in 2012, viral content comes in all shapes and sizes. Purposeful viral marketing is one way in which something could go viral, and is one of the reasons why some songs have so many streams in a short space of time. This type of marketing involves a tactical approach and pre-planning in an attempt to push the content into the public eye and encourage it to spread as quickly as possible.
However, many artists who go viral do not expect to. Accessible, catchy content created by an already popular artist is already poised to do well, i.e. the latest song or album from U.S. singer Drake. This is an example of incidental viral marketing, when content spreads by itself partially as a result of an established and engaged audience. Indeed, Spotify’s most-streamed tracks generally originate from a well-known figure with a large following. But for smaller or entirely unknown content creators, going viral or experiencing their 15 minutes of fame can simply be a case of posting the right thing at the right time.
"It", the 2017 adaptation of the book by the same name written by Stephen King, ranked first as the highest grossing horror movie of all time. "Alien: Romulus", the latest installment of the Alien franchise released in summer 2024, came in seventh position with less than 350 million dollars.
Battery-electric vehicles broke records in the United States in 2023, when they surpassed the one million sales threshold. This was an increase of some 55.4 percent compared to 2022.
Based on an evaluation of political advertising spending on Google, the state of California had the highest political expenditure at 200 million U.S. dollars between May 31, 2018, and October 22, 2024. The second-highest spending belonged to Pennsylvania, at 150 million dollars devoted to Google ads during the same period.
Political advertising allows candidates to promote themselves and convey their message to millions of prospective voters. By running ads on television, radio, print media, or the internet, politicians can reach large audiences and potentially impact the outcome of an election, making advertising an indispensable tool in the political playbook. As for the United States, where political campaigns have been highly publicized in recent years, political advertising spending is forecast to reach a new peak in 2024. Looking at the distribution of spending by region, Florida emerged as the U.S. state with the highest TV advertising spending during the 2020 presidential campaign. This could be explained by the fact that Florida ranks third for the number of Electoral votes alongside New York.
While traditional media formats such as television remain popular platforms for political promotion, digital channels are seeing the sharpest increase in usage. Between the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, U.S. digital ad spend on political campaigns has more than doubled, amounting to an estimated 1.82 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. That year, Biden for President was the largest political advertiser on Google, as well as the leading political advertiser on Facebook as of October. Seeing how political candidates spend larger sums on Facebook ads than ever, there is no debate whether social media has become a game-changer for political advertising or not.
In 2023, the growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) in China amounted to 5.2 percent. For 2024, the IMF expects a GDP growth rate of around 4.8 percent.
The current gross domestic product is an important indicator of the economic strength of a country. It refers to the total market value of all goods and services that are produced within a country per year. When analyzing year-on-year changes, the current GDP is adjusted for inflation, thus making it constant. Real GDP growth is regarded as a key indicator for economic growth as it incorporates constant GDP figures. As of 2023, China was among the leading countries with the largest gross domestic product worldwide, second only to the United States which had a GDP volume of almost 27.5 trillion U.S. dollars. The Chinese GDP has shown remarkable growth over the past years. Upon closer examination of the distribution of GDP across economic sectors, a gradual shift from an economy heavily based on industrial production towards an economy focused on services becomes visible, with the service industry outpacing the manufacturing sector in terms of GDP contribution.
Another important indicator for economic assessment is the balance of trade, which measures the relationship between imports and exports of a nation. As an economy heavily reliant on manufacturing and industrial production, China has reached a trade surplus over the last decade, with a total trade balance of around 823 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.
We asked Japanese consumers about "Most popular smartphone brands" and found that "Apple" takes the top spot, while "Rakuten" is at the other end of the ranking. Find this and more survey data on most popular smartphone brands in Japan in our Consumer Insights tool. Filter by countless demographics, drill down to your own, hand-tailored target audience, and compare results across countries worldwide.
Crédit Agricole was France's largest bank by customer base in 2023, serving approximately 53 million customers across its global operations. Groupe BPCE held the second position with around 36 million customers, while BNP Paribas followed in third place with 31 million customers. However, BNP Paribas maintained its position as France's largest bank by market capitalization, despite ranking third in customer numbers.
As of October 21, 2024, the net approval rating of the new Labour government in the United Kingdom stood at -40 percent, far lower than -2 percent in late July. The previous Conservative government's net approval rating was -56 percent just before the 2024 General Election, with a low of -76 percent recorded in October 2022.
As of January 2024, Johann Rupert and his family are the richest people in South Africa with a net worth of 9.6 billion U.S. dollars. The Rupert family are ranked at 224 globally and are the second richest people in Africa after Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote, reclaimed the title. Rupert's net worth dropped by 2.2 billion U.S. dollars from 2023, mainly due to a decline in the market value of luxury goods company Richemont, where he owns an estimated 9.14 percent stake. Nicky Oppenheimer and his family placed as the second richest in South Africa, with a net worth of 9.4 billion U.S. dollars and ranking at 232 worldwide. Their net worth source was mostly founded via the diamond market. They were followed by Koos Bekker, the chairman of media group Naspers, with 2.6 billion U.S. dollars who placed 1,202 globally. Patrice Motsepe, the first black African on the Forbes list and founder of African Rainbow Minerals, ranked 1,208 out of the global billionaires list, with a net worth of 2.6 billion U.S. dollars.
Where does the wealth reside in the continent?
The three largest economies in the continent in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), namely Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa saw the highest concentration of private wealth in the continent, with South Africa ranking first when it came to private wealth. In fact, out of Africa’s 20 wealthiest families and individuals, 14 of them were from these economies. Since 2010, the number of high net worth individuals in the continent fluctuated peaking at 148 individuals in 2017 and reaching its lowest in 2020 at 125. High net worth individuals are people whose net assets exceed one million U.S. dollars. On the other hand, South Africa suffered from severe income inequality ranking as the most unequal country in the world with a Gini coefficient of 62.73 percent.
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