WSJ By The Numbers - Top 10 for Oct.31
Tailoring
Ads to Email Users, Google Has Some Poor Fits: The Gmail Web site had
about 10 million U.S. users in September, compared with 77 million for
Yahoo Mail and 46 million for Microsoft's Hotmail, according to research
firm comScore Networks Inc. (Users who access such email services using
software installed on their computers, rather than through the Web sites
themselves, and aren't counted in comScore's tallies). In addition to ads,
Google now suggests news articles and Web pages to users based on their
Gmail messages.
| Seed Firms Bolster Crops Using Traits Of Distant Relatives: Getting to market first with more genetically modified seeds and acquisitions have driven Monsanto's share of U.S. seed-corn sales to roughly 25% from 10% six years ago, while Pioneer's has slipped to about 31% from 38% in 2000. Syngenta lifted its share to about 12% from about 7% through acquisitions. Genetically Modified seeds are very lucrative as farmers around the world paid a premium of $2.2 billion last year for genetically modified organisms (GMO) seeds such as corn that makes its own insect killer and thus doesn't need chemical insecticide. | $2.2B Genetic Seeds |
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Behind the British Debt Magic: Today, U.K. consumers are neck-deep in debt from credit cards, personal loans and mortgages. They owe more than £1.148 trillion ($2.178 trillion), according to the Bank of England. That pales next to U.S. consumers' more than $12.4 trillion in outstanding debt, and the average U.K. consumer is less in debt than an American consumer. |
$12.4T US Consumer Debt |
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Core Inflation Measure Eases But Leaves Questions for Fed: The Fed's preferred inflation measure -- the price index for personal consumption expenditures excluding food and energy -- rose 0.2% in September after an upwardly revised 0.3% gain in August, the Commerce Department said. Compared with a year earlier, this measure of "core" inflation was up 2.4% last month, less than the 2.5% pace in August. |
2.4% Core Inflation |
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China's Thirst for Diesel, Kerosene Stays Strong: China's crude-oil imports were up 20% to 13.46 million tons in September, or an average of 3.29 million barrels a day, a record for any month. China's economy grew 10.4% between July and September from a year earlier, a rate analysts said was robust even though it was slower than the 11.3% rate for the prior three-month period. |
3.29M China oil imports in barrels/day |
| Targeting Hedge Funds: When Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) went bust, it had about $5 billion in assets that it had leveraged into a $120 billion portfolio. The big news last month was the implosion of $9 billion Amaranth Advisors hedge fund. But these did little to diminish wealthy investors' appetite for new funds as today there are more than 3,000 hedge funds, managing more than $1 trillion in assets. | $120B LTCM |
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Employers, Insurers Push Generics Harder: Nearly half of the 60 most commonly prescribed drugs will become available generically over the next four years, at prices that could save health plans and consumers a potential $49 billion by 2010. Some 53% of prescriptions are filled with generics today. In 2005 the difference between a brand-name and generic drug averaged $84, according to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. |
$49B Generics Savings |
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Public Radio Goes Global Over the Web: KCRW online had 760,000 unique visitors in October, according to Google Analytics, a Web analysis service. At this time last year, the number was about 585,000. Many big radio companies now sell advertising for their streams separately to their broadcast advertising, and start most podcasts with an ad. Industry-wide, online revenue now runs well north of $100 million annually. |
$100M Public Radio Online |
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Newspaper Circulations Slide More: Average daily circulation of the 770 newspapers reporting results to the ABC dropped 2.8% on a year-to-year basis during the six months ended Sept. 30, according to an analysis from the Newspaper Association of America. Tribune's Los Angeles Times posted the biggest percentage decline among the nation's top 25 papers, reporting an 8% six-month drop in total paid circulation to 775,766 compared with a year ago. |
2.8% Circulation Drop |
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Older Consoles Lift Game Publishers: As Sony earlier this year dropped the price of PS2 console to $129 from $149, the PS2 is outselling the Xbox 360, even though it is a far less advanced machine. Sony has sold 2.4 million units in the U.S. this year, compared with 2.1 million units for the Xbox 360, according to NPD data. The trend has helped strengthen the PS2's position as the dominant videogame console, with more than 106 million shipped world-wide. |
106M PS2 Shipments |
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Verizon's Efforts In Client Growth Hit Some Hurdles: Verizon Wireless grew the fastest of any of the U.S. wireless carriers, adding 1.9 million net new customers to bring its total to 56.7 million during the latest quarter. In comparison, Cingular Wireless added 1.4 million net new customers and has a base of 58.7 million. Verizon also added 448,000 net high-speed Internet residential and small-business customers in the quarter, helped along by the FiOS fiber network. The loss of residential and business phone lines continued, with a loss of 7.5% from a year earlier to 46 million lines. |
56.7M Verizon Wireless Customers |
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WSJ By The Numbers - Metrics 2.0 |
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