Statista

For the first time, Statista and TIME Magazine have joined forces to identify the World’s Most Sustainable Companies for 2024, aiming to highlight corporate responsibility and promote sustainable practices. In an era marked by significant environmental challenges and social inequalities, it is crucial to recognize and reward companies prioritizing sustainability. By featuring these leading entities, the ranking sets a benchmark for other businesses, fostering transparency and accountability and encouraging the integration of sustainability into core corporate strategies. More information can be found here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dAxy8_Ag Schneider Electric NEC Corporation Moncler Brambles Illumina

Billionaire heir Anant Ambani married Radhika Merchant in Mumbai this past weekend, in an opulent ceremony attended by politicians and celebrities, from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former UK prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair to Kim and Khloé Kardashian. The Ambanis, India’s wealthiest family and owners of the country’s largest private company, Reliance Industries, footed the bill for the extravagant three-day event, speculated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Weddings look very different around the world, from the size of the guest list to how long festivities go on for, and of course, the cost. According to data from the online wedding publication The Knot, an average wedding in the United States cost $35,000 in 2023, or around $300 per guest, when not accounting for jewelry, engagement rings or a honeymoon. It was followed by the United Kingdom at $28,500 or $320 per head, Spain at $25,700 or $210 per head, Italy at $23,900 or $220 per head and France at $21,800 or $220 per head. The average wedding cost in India last year, according to the source, was closer to $25,000 for middle class couples; although around 15 percent were found to spend more than $45,000 on a wedding that year. The Knot analysts add that the average middle class household makes $7,000 to $40,000 annually. In terms of the average guest list size, then India comes first out of the 15 surveyed countries with 326 guests on average in 2023, followed by the U.S. with 146, Uruguay with 129, Brazil with 124 and Spain with 121.

The e-commerce leader in Europe is Amazon - but Chinese ventures into international e-commerce, for example AliExpress or more recently Temu, have made inroads. The following infographic looks specifically at the example of the Chinese company Pinduoduo, drawing from ecommmerceDB figures. According to this data, Pinduoduo will only be 13 percent behind Amazon in terms of gross merchandise volume in 2024. To put this in perspective: in 2019, Amazon's gross merchandise volume was more than twice as large as that of Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo also owns the online marketplace Temu. The Temu app went online in the U.S. in autumn 2022, where it went straight to number one in the download charts. While Temu's global goods volume of around $30 billion is still quite small compared to the $389 billion of amazon.com, sales forecasts are pointing upwards. Shortly after the release of the shopping app Temu in autumn 2022, Pinduoduo renamed itself PDD Holdings and has since served as the holding company for both platforms. In 2023, PDD Holdings recorded record sales of $34.9 billion. Compared to the previous year, this corresponds to sales growth of almost 90 percent, which, according to the company, is due to an increase in revenue from online marketing services and transaction services.

Originally conceived in 2015 to celebrate Amazon's 20th anniversary, Prime Day has quickly evolved into a major shopping event, rivaling Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For Amazon, it has become a great vehicle to boost sales in the slower summer months, explaining why the event has been extended from 24 hours in 2015 and 2016, to 30 hours in 2017, 36 hours in 2018 and finally 48 hours since 2019. After having been forced to move Prime Day to the fall due to the pandemic in 2020, Amazon's annual shopping holiday has been back in its original summer slot since 2021. As the following chart, based on estimates from Digital Commerce 360, shows, Prime Day sales have grown significantly over the years. In 2020, total merchandise volume, including first and third-party sales passed the $10 billion milestone for the first time and 2021 saw $11.2 billion in sales. Since that year, however, growth has been slower, hitting $12.9 billion in 2023. Sales are projected by Adobe to rise to $14.0 billion this year, which would be a step up in terms of growth. The number of Prime members worldwide has grown from 150 million in January 2020 to more than 200 million in April 2021. Since then, growth hasn't been published by Amazon (always a telltale sign) while third-party analysts estimate the program to have been around 230 million members strong as of Q1 2024 - also marking a slowdown in growth. Amazon Prime Day deals are only available to members, creating an incentive for consumers to sign up for the program or stay onboard. Research has shown that Prime members outspend non-members by a significant margin, explaining why Amazon is putting so much effort into its membership program.

What are the biggest challenges for the United States today? Statista's Consumer Insights show that the answer partially depends on respondents' political orientation. However, Americans on the left and the right could agree on one thing when the last survey was carried out between early 2023 and early 2024. Rising prices, inflation and the cost of living crisis were the most frequently picked option among all political groups. Those describing themselves as part of the political center agreed most often at 61 percent of respondents identifying rising prices and inflation as a major issue in the country. 51 percent on the left and 45 percent on the right also did so. While left-leaning Americans also frequently named issues of health/social security, climate change, poverty and housing as being important, center and right-leaning Americans both said that crime and the economy were the other major problems in the U.S. In general, Americans on the right didn't identify issues with as high a frequency as other political camps.

Going online is now the preferred channel for travelers looking to book accommodations in Europe. All in all, direct online bookings, booking through online travel platforms, and social media made up 64.6% of all European hotel bookings in 2022. The lion’s share of the remaining bookings are made offline directly with the hotel or via a tour operator. Despite increasing digitalization in the accommodation industry, offline reservations still make up a quarter of the total European hotel bookings. Whether online or offline, more than half of guests book their European accommodations directly with the hotels where they are staying

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In June 2024, 34 million out of 154 million U.S. workers aged 16 and older were engaged in remote work, roughly half of whom had a telework quota of 100 percent as per U.S. Census Bureau data. The increasing acceptance of hybrid or fully remote work in a variety of industries coupled with many companies applying cost-cutting measures after pandemic growth spurts has led to a jump in vacant office spaces in the United States. Preliminary data from Moody's commercial real estate market analysis for the second quarter of 2024 shows the share of empty offices has hit a historic high of 20.1 percent. As the Statista Chart illustrates, this marks a 3.2 percentage point increase compared to the last quarter before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and an increase of almost five percentage points compared to the second quarter of 2018. The previous highs, according to Moody's analysts commenting on the data in the accompanying press release, were at 19.3 percent in 1986 and 1991. This is also reflected in the change in effective rent, which was flat in one and decreased in three of the past four quarters. The role of big tech companies in this development is evident when drilling down to the changes in specific metro areas. For example, San Francisco exhibited a vacancy percentage increase of 5.4 points and effective rents shrinking by 4.7 percent over the past twelve months. The Raleigh-Durham metro, also known as the Research Triangle due to its three elite universities and large concentration of tech and life science companies, experienced an office vacancy rate increase of 4.7 percent between the second quarters of 2023 and 2024.

The rise of on-demand music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music has not only changed the way we pay for music but also the way we consume it. With their curated playlists and endless opportunities to individualize the listening experience, streaming services promote a more track-based consumption as opposed to the album model that dominated the industry before the dawn of the digital age. What Apple started by selling single tracks for 99 cents on the iTunes Store appears to be accelerated by the rise of streaming services: the decline of the album format, especially in physical form.    Since 2000, CD album sales have declined more than 95 percent, as first downloads and then streaming have rendered the music industry former golden goose all but obsolete. Interestingly, vinyl sales have seen a resurgence in recent years, growing 1860% between 2000 and 2023. That sounds like a lot more than it actually is, though, as vinyl albums nearly extinct in 2000 at 2.2 million sold units and have since grown to 43 million units in 2023. While that barely moves the needle in the grand scheme of things, it was enough to surpass CD sales in 2022 – something that seemed unthinkable at the turn of the century, when the Compact Disc was in its prime.    As our latest video, based on Recording Industry Association of America® (RIAA) data, shows, all physical media were eventually succeeded by another medium. 8-Tracks and vinyl records were replaced by cassettes, which were then replaced by CDs. And while vinyl records have a dedicated fanbase these days and vinyl sales are unlikely to go back to zero anytime soon, all physical media look set for a niche existence in today’s age of digital music. 

Are you looking for a doctor for a specific medical procedure? To help with this process, a total of 650 physicians in four specialties were recognized this year. The first edition of America's Best Vascular Surgeons, Spine Surgeons, Prostate Cancer Oncologists and Prostate Cancer Surgeons features the top 650 physicians. To determine the best physicians, an evaluation of the data provided by the physicians was conducted: Volume of procedures performed and five metrics per procedure, such as complications per procedure or mortality rate. In addition, thousands of medical experts with knowledge in the respective fields were invited to participate in an online survey. For the national recommendations, participants were asked to rate the quality of care, e.g. treatments, follow-up care or use of the recent equipment. Several board certifications were taken into consideration for all eligible physicians.  We use our infographics in this post to explain our approach by way of example. You can find more information here: Spine Surgeons 👉 https://lnkd.in/d_4jkTd2 Vascular Surgeons 👉 https://lnkd.in/dwvMBPhn Prostate Cancer Oncologists  👉https://lnkd.in/dNfKDzrn Prostate Cancer Surgoens👉  https://lnkd.in/d9_Zp2hQ Methodology 👉 https://lnkd.in/dq5kjphG