WSJ By The Numbers - Top 10 for Oct.12
Visa
IPO Should Speed Innovations in Payments: Last year, Visa accounted
for more than $4 trillion of transactions on more
than 1.4 billion branded cards around the world. Purchases on its
general-purpose credit cards represented 60.3% of
the global credit-card market last year, compared with 26.9% for
MasterCard and 11% for American Express, according to the Nilson Report,
which tracks industry data.
Visa is owned by more than 20,000 financial institutions around the world, and analysts value it at $12.5 billion, higher than MasterCard's market value of nearly $9.4 billion. For its fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2005, Visa reported net income of $325 million on revenue of $4.01 billion for all of its global entities.
| Behind Soaring Executive Pay, Decades of Failed Restraints: The average pay for chief executives of large companies was $10.5 million last year, a figure that includes salary, bonus and the value of stock and stock-option grants. Average U.S. CEO pay was 369 times as much as the average earned by a worker last year, compared with 131 times in 1993 and 36 times in 1976. The average U.S. paycheck has barely kept ahead of inflation in recent years. In the 1970s, companies picked outside CEOs about 15% of the time. By the 1990s, that had risen to 27%. Last year outsiders won 40% of the CEO vacancies at S&P 500 firms. | $10.5M CEO Pay |
| For Chinese Tycoon, Solar Power Fuels Overnight Wealth: There are now about 320,000 U.S.-dollar millionaires in China, according to estimates by Merrill Lynch and CapGemini. On a list of the 500 richest people in China, compiled by the Chinese-language New Fortune magazine, Dr. Shi debuted this year at No. 1. | 320,000 $Millionaires in China |
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As Companies Probe Backdating, More Top Officials Take a Fall: More than 100 companies are under investigation for options backdating, and scores of them are still conducting internal probes. U.S. attorneys in more than a half-dozen jurisdictions are probing at least 50 companies. |
100 Options Probes |
| Budget Deficit Shrinks On Strong Tax Receipts: Strong tax receipts from individuals and corporations helped to shrink the U.S. budget deficit for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 to $248 billion, far narrower than the $423 billion previously projected by the White House. The biggest surge came from corporate income taxes, which increased 27% to $354 billion. The single biggest chunk of tax revenue came from individual income taxes, up 13% to $1 trillion. | $248B Budget Deficit |
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Home-Sale Outlook Is Lowered: The National Association of Realtors estimates 2006 sales of previously owned homes will decrease 8.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.45 million. The association projects the median existing-home price will climb 1.6% to $223,000 in 2006. |
-8.9% Home Sales |
| For Dining Chains, Lucrative Drinks Could Make for Very Happy Hours: Restaurants enjoy profit margins of about 35% for alcoholic beverages, compared with 15% for food, according to Technomic. Research indicates that between 30% - 60% of arrested drunken drivers had been drinking in a restaurant or bar prior to their arrest. | 35% Alcohol Profits |
| Palm Adds a Branch to Treo Line: According to IDC, Palm had a 29% share of U.S. smart-phone sales in the first half of this year, ranking it second behind RIM's 51.3% share and ahead of Motorola's 10.5% and Nokia's 3.7%. Overall, smart-phone shipments in the U.S. are expected to grow to 33.9 million units by 2010 from 8.3 million units this year, says IDC. | 33.9M Smartphones |
| IBM to Transfer Key Unit's Base To China From New York State: In 2004, China overtook the U.S. as the world's largest exporter of high-tech goods such as laptop computers, mobile phones and digital cameras, exporting $180 billion in products compared with the U.S.'s $149 billion, according to the OECD. | No.1 China |
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Finally, the Contractor Will Take Your Calls: Spending on home remodeling, maintenance and repairs totaled $215 billion in 2005, up from $199 billion in 2004, according to the most recent annual data from the Census Bureau. |
$215B Home Improvements |
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WSJ By The Numbers - Metrics 2.0 |
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