In this presentation, I have chosen loads of current examples that you might want to use as context in your microeconomics exams. We look at examples from different market structures, recent mergers and takeovers, the world's most valuable companies, the largest employer, unicorn business, de-mergers, the biggest initial public offerings (IPOs) and much else. Hopefully a useful video to go through to add some super examples into your revision notes.
3. World's 50 largest companies based on number of employees in 2017
2,300,000
1,470,193
948,239
913,546
803,126
667,793
642,292
588,112
573,614
566,000
491,578
472,208
469,600
467,532
453,048
0 500000 1000000 1500000 2000000 2500000
Walmart
China National Petroleum
China Post Group
State Grid
Hon Hai Precision Industry
Sinopec Group
Volkswagen
Compass Group
U.S. Postal Service
Amazon.com
Agricultural Bank of China
Deutsche Post
Gazprom
China Mobile Communications
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China
5. Largest
companies
in the world
by market
value in
2018 (in
billion U.S.
dollars)
Ranking of the companies rank 1 to 18 Market value in billion U.S. dollars
Apple 926.9
Amazon.com 777.8
Alphabet 766.4
Microsoft 750.6
Facebook 541.5
Alibaba 499.4
Berkshire Hathaway 491.9
Tencent Holdings 491.3
JPMorgan Chase 387.7
ExxonMobil 344.1
Johnson & Johnson 341.3
Samsung Electronics 325.9
Bank of America 313.5
ICBC 311
Royal Dutch Shell 306.5
Visa 295.1
Wells Fargo 265.3
China Construction Bank 261.2
13. Start-up
companies valued
at one billion U.S.
dollars or more by
venture-capital
firms worldwide,
as of April 2019, by
valuation (in billion
U.S. dollars)
Valuation in billion U.S. dollars
Toutiao (Bytedance) 75
Uber 72
Didi Chuxing 56
WeWork 47
JUUL Labs 38
Airbnb 29.3
Stripe 22.5
SpaceX 18.5
Epic Games 15
GrabTaxi 14
Bitmain Technologies 12
Samumed 12
Global Switch 11.08
Palantir Technologies 11
Pinterest 10.47
Infor 10
DJI Innovations 10
One97 Communications (operates Paytm) 10
24. Largest IPOs worldwide as of January 2019 (in billion U.S. dollars)
21.77
21.35
18.1
17.86
17.78
16.45
16.01
15.77
13.96
13.03
10.99
10.62
10.42
10.42
10.05
0 5 10 15 20 25
Alibaba Group Holding (09.18.2014)
SoftBank Corp (12.10.2018)
NTT Mobile (10.22.1998)
Visa (03.18.2008)
AIA (10.21.2010)
ENEL SpA (11.01.1999)
Facebook (05.17.2012)
General Motors (11.17.2010)
ICBC Bank - H (10.20.2006)
Deutsche Telekom (11.17.1996)
Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance (03.23.2010)
AT&T Wireless Group (04.26.2000)
Agricultural Bank - H (07.07.2010)
Rosneft Oil Company (07.13.2006)
Glencore (05.19.2011)
The public sector includes organisations that are owned / controlled by central or local government. It includes the NHS, state-schools, the Police, HM forces and the civil service. ... The NHS employs 30% of all UK public sector staff, with education employing 28% of public sector staff.
Social enterprises have grown in importance for the British economy in recent years.
What are social enterprises?
A social enterprise is a business created to address a social problem
Profits are reinvested for one or more social purposes in the community, rather than the need to satisfy investors
Co-operatives are businesses owned and run by and for their members. Whether the members are the customers, employees or residents they have an equal say in what the business does and a share in the profits. The largest co-operatives in the UK by turnover are the John Lewis Partnership, the Co-op Group and Arla Foods UK
Organic (or internal) growth involves expansion from within a business, for example by expanding the product range, or number of business units and location.
Organic growth builds on the business’ own capabilities and resources. For most businesses, this is the only expansion method used.
A conglomerate is a business with several significant business activities in diverse markets.
In finance, a unicorn is a privately held start-up company with a current valuation of US$1 billion or more
The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures. ... According to TechCrunch, there were 279 unicorns as of March 2018.
A joint venture occurs when two or more businesses join together to pursue a common project
Basics on joint ventures
With a joint venture, businesses remain separate in legal terms
Joint ventures are common, as firms want to benefit from collaborative work in reaching a mutually agreed strategic target.
Many joint ventures seek to share the fixed costs of major business research / infrastructure projects
The Walt Disney Company’s $71.3bn takeover of most of 20th Century Fox is a gigantic deal
Amazon surprised shoppers with its $13.7 billion acquisition of the grocery chain.
The hiving off of one or more business units from a group so that they can operate as independently managed concerns.
Horizontal integration involves the combination of two business operating in the same industry and at the same stage of the supply chain.
2016 Ladbrokes merged with Gala Coral
A challenger brand is a brand in an industry where it is neither the market leader nor a niche brand.
Challenger brands are experts in the world of disruption
Great to use when discussing contestable markets
Important examples to use in the transport sector – most train operating companies are privately owned businesses running franchises
LNER is state owned and now runs the East Coast line
Monopolistic competition is a form of imperfect competition and can be found in many real world markets ranging from clusters of sandwich bars, other fast food shops and coffee stores in a busy town centre to pizza delivery businesses in a city or hairdressers in a local area.
An oligopoly is a market dominated by a few producers. An oligopoly is an industry where there is a high level of market concentration. Examples of markets that can be described as oligopolies include the markets for petrol in the UK, soft drinks producers and the major high street banks. Another example is the global market for sports footwear – 60% of which is held by Nike and Adidas. However, oligopoly is best defined by the conduct (or behaviour) of firms within a market.
The concentration ratio measures the extent to which a market or industry is dominated by a few leading firms. A rule of thumb is that an oligopoly exists when the top five firms in the market account for more than 60% of total market sales.
Duopoly is a form of oligopoly. In its purest form two firms control all of the market, but in reality the term duopoly is used to describe any market where two firms dominate
Examples of duopolistic markets: There are many examples of duopoly including the following:
Coca-Cola and Pepsi (soft drinks), Unilever and Proctor & Gamble (detergents)
Bloomberg and Reuters (Financial information services), Sotheby's and Christie's (auctioneers of antiques/paintings)
Airbus and Boeing (aircraft manufacturers)
Toyko-based telecommunications company Softbank has a hand in many of the leading startups.
Alibaba is China's — and by some measures, the world's — biggest online commerce company. Its three main sites — Taobao, Tmall and Alibaba.com — have hundreds of millions of users, and host millions of merchants and businesses. Alibaba handles more business than any other e-commerce company.
A monopsony occurs when there is a sole or a dominant employer in a labour market. This means that the employer has buying power over their potential employees.