Graph: The World's Billionaires 2012 (Part 3)

Which industry should you go into if you want to be a billionaire? The chart below shows which industries have the highest number of billionaires and the highest total net worth of billionaires. 

Data Source: Forbes; Classifications of industry are modified

From the chart, the top 3 industries with the most number of billionaires is Investments (145), followed by Fashion and Retail (132) and Real Estate (104). In terms of total net worth, the top 3 industries with the highest billionaires' total net worth is Fashion and Retail (US$685bn), followed by Investments (US$507bn) and Technology (US$447bn).

Some billionaires from these categories include:


Investments: 
Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), George Soros, Carl Icahn (activist investor), John Paulson, Richard Chandler (NZ investor), Henry Kravis (of private equity firm KKR)


Fashion and Retail:
Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Amancio Ortega (Zara), Stefan Persson (H&M), Karl Albrecht (Aldi), Christy Walton & family (Walmart), Liliane Bettencourt (L'Oreal)

Real Estate:
Lee Shau Kee (HK), Donald Trump, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor & family

Technology:
Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Sergey Brin (Google), Larry Page (Google), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Michael Dell (Dell), Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), Paul Allen (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google)

Note that the chart has not followed the classifications of industry by Forbes exactly. For example, the industry category Healthcare above includes both the Healthcare and Medicine categories from Forbes. The industry category Fashion and Retail above includes both the Fashion and Retail and Retail categories from Forbes. In addition, there are also some other re-classifications of industry based on the Source of their wealth provided by Forbes.

See the first series of graphs and analysis in Part 1 (Billionaires: Age Distribution, Youngest / Oldest Billionaires) and  Part 2 (Billionaires by Country and Continent).

Data Source: Forbes; Graphs: Generated by me

Graph: The World's Billionaires 2012 (Part 2)

Which country and continent has the most billionaires? This Part 2 on the World's Billionaires, based on the list recently released by Forbes, shows the number of billionaires by country. [In this case, the country refers to the country where the billionaire has citizenship.]

Data Source: Forbes

From the chart, you can see that the US has by far the largest number of billionaires (425), in fact, more than the next 7 countries combined. Russia and China are next with almost 100 billionaires each. The total number of countries with at least one billionaire is 59. In South America, Brazil is the country with the most billionaires.

This next chart shows the number of billionaires by continent. North America has the most, because of the large number in the US. Europe is second, followed by Asia.

Data Source: Forbes

See the first series of graphs and analysis in Part 1 (Billionaires: Age Distribution, Youngest / Oldest Billionaires) and Part 3 (Billionaires by Industry).

Data Source: Forbes; Graphs: Generated by me

Graph: World – Population and GDP by Country (Part 1)

This graph shows the GDP and population by country, as well as the GDP per capita (which is the gradient of each data point). This is similar to an earlier post on Africa. It illustrates the largest economies in the world by GDP and population.

Data Source: World Bank

Some points of note:

a)      US: The United States is still by far the largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, with a 2010 GDP of US$14.6 trillion. Its GDP per capita of $47,199 puts it at around 11^th in the world (see here).

b)      EU: The EU, if it were a country, would have a larger GDP than the US – it has a combined GDP of U$16.2 trillion. However, its GDP per capita of $32,311 is much lower than the US.

c)      China: China is now the 2^nd largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. Due to its large population, its GDP per capita (at $4,428) is around the median ($4,560).

d)      Japan and Germany: Japan and Germany are the 3^rd and 4^th largest economies in the world. 

e)      India, Indonesia and Brazil: These are highlighted here as they are economies with large populations. India and Indonesia are still relatively low in their total GDP, as well as GDP per capita, which are below the median. Brazil, on the other hand, has a GDP per capita that is above the median. These are potential next tier of fast growing countries.

See Part 2 and Part 3 here.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me