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The World’s 20 Most Profitable Companies

 most profitable companies

 

The biggest chunk of the earnings pie is increasingly split by fewer and fewer companies.

In the U.S. for example, about 50% of all profit generated by public companies goes to just 30 companies — back in 1975, it took 109 companies to accomplish the same feat:

YearNumber of Firms Generating 50% of EarningsTotal Public Companies (U.S.)Portion (%)
1975 109 4,819 2.2%
2015 30 3,766 0.8%

This power-law dynamic also manifests itself at a global level — and perhaps it’s little surprise that the world’s most profitable companies generate mind-bending returns that would make any accountant blush.

Which Company Makes the Most Per Day?

Today’s infographic comes to us from HowMuch.net, and it uses data from Fortune to illustrate how much profit top global companies actually rake in on a daily basis.

The 20 most profitable companies in the world are listed below in order, and we’ve also broken the same data down per second:

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This article was written by Jeff Desjardins and originally appeared on Visual Capitalist. Read the original article on VisualCapitalist.com

Tags: infographics

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