WSJ By The Numbers - Top 10 for Nov.01
Cingular
to Launch Cellphone Music Service: As demand for phones that double as
music players has been rising from consumers tired of carrying around
multiple devices, Sony Ericsson has sold 15 million Walkman music phones
in the past 14 months. Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, is aiming
to sell 80 million music phones in 2006, making Nokia the world's largest
manufacturer of digital-music players.
| Migrants' Money Is Imperfect Cure For Poor Nations: With tens of millions of migrants around the globe sending remittances home, the flood of money has grown to $167 billion last year, according to the World Bank, almost doubling from little over $80 billion in 2000. Money sent home from abroad accounts for about 60% of the income of the poorest households in Guatemala, and has helped reduce the number of people living in poverty by 11% points in Uganda and 6% points in Bangladesh, according to World Bank studies. | $167B Migrant's Money |
| Bush Gains Ground on Economy, But Iraq Still Tops Voters' Agenda: The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Mr. Bush essentially breaking even on the economy, with 46% of voters approving his stewardship and 48% disapproving. That's a gain from 39% approval and 56% disapproval in June. However voters want Democrats, rather than Republicans, to control Congress by 52% to 37%, a 15-point margin. | 46% vs. 48% |
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Employment Costs Rise Faster, Adding to Inflation Concerns: The U.S. employment-cost index rose 1% during the 3rd quarter after gaining 0.9% in the second quarter, the Labor Department reported. Employment costs were 3.3% higher than a year earlier, up from a 3% increase the previous quarter. Benefit costs for state and local governments in the third quarter were 5.2% higher than a year earlier, while private-sector employers saw a smaller 2.8% rise. |
3.3% Employment Cost Growth |
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Booming Audit Firms Seek Shield From Suits: A study for the European Commission, released in September, said the total costs of judgments, settlements, legal fees and related expenses for the U.S. audit practices of the Big Four firms had risen to $1.3 billion in 2004, or 14.2% of revenue, up from 7.7% in 1999. In addition, according to a study by insurer Aon, there were 20 claims outstanding against U.S. auditors as of September 2005 where damages sought or estimated losses topped $1 billion. |
80M Nokia Music Phones |
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Pfizer's Top Experimental Drug Is Clouded by Blood-Pressure Rise: Pfizer is spending more than $800 million on clinical tests of the drug called torcetrapib, which raises HDL, or good cholesterol. Pfizer's cholesterol-fighter Lipitor is the world's best-selling medicine with $12.19 billion in sales last year. Lipitor may face generic competition as early as 2010, and the company has bet on torcetrapib to take up the slack once Lipitor fades away. |
$12B Lipitor |
| Bank of Japan Remains Upbeat About Economy: Bank of Japan forecasts that GDP would grow 2.4% in the fiscal year that ends March 31. Overall household spending fell 6% in September from a year earlier, marking a ninth straight month of decline. Unemployment rose to 4.2% in September from 4.1% in August. The Bank of Japan currently targets short-term interest rates of 0.25%, after abandoning in July a five-year policy of keeping rates at zero. | 2.4% Japan GDP |
| India Raises Its Main Lending Rate: The Reserve Bank of India raised its overnight lending rate, by 0.25 percentage point to 7.25%. The bank left its overnight borrowing rate, unchanged at 6%. The central bank lifted its inflation-adjusted GDP growth target for the year ending March 31 to around 8% from its earlier target of between 7.5% and 8%. The central bank maintained its inflation target of 5% to 5.5% for the fiscal year. | 8% India GDP |
| Google Buys JotSpot to Expand Online Document-Sharing Service: JotSpot has about 30,000 paying corporate customers at about 2,000 companies. Roughly 300,000 people use JotSpot's free service and the company has 27 employees. | 30k Paying Customers |
| Midterm Elections Offer Rookie Anchors New Battleground: In their normal slots, Brian Williams holds a commanding lead as for the week ended Oct. 27, Mr. Williams attracted an average of 8.9 million viewers to "Nightly News" NBC, according to Nielsen Media Research. At "World News" on ABC, Charles Gibson averaged 8.4 million. Katie Couric averaged 7.3 million on "Evening News" on CBS. | 8.9M Nightly News Viewers |
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WSJ By The Numbers - Metrics 2.0 |
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