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: The World's Billionaires 2012 (Part 1)

What is the age distribution of the world's billionaires? Who are the youngest and the oldest billionaires? Forbes just released their annual list of the World's Billionaires, which they started 25 years ago. Then, there were 140 billionaires, now there are 1,226 billionaires. [Note: The figures are calculated as at March 2012, according to this methodology.]

The next series of graphs show the number of billionaires in the world by various dimensions. This first one shows the billionaires by net worth and age (for those whose age is disclosed).

Data Source: Forbes; Only those whose age is disclosed is included

From the chart, you can see that the top 5 billionaires by net worth are (1) Carlos Slim and family (Mexican telecoms tycoon) (US$69bn), (2) Bill Gates (of Microsoft fame) (US$61bn), (3) Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway value investor) (US$44bn), (4) Bernard Arnault (LVMH) (US$41bn) and (5) Amancio Ortego (Spanish fashion tycoon, of Zara fame) (US$37.5bn).

The oldest billionaire is Walter Haefner, aged 101, a Swiss software tycoon with net worth of US$4.3bn. 

The youngest billionaire is Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook fame, aged 27, with net worth of US$17.5bn, and Dustin Moskovitz, also aged 27, with net worth of US$3.5bn, whose fortune also comes from Facebook. [In total, there are 7 billionaires whose net worth is linked to Facebook.]


From the chart, you can see a wide range of ages from which billionaires are drawn from, though the majority is around 40 to 90 years old. The median age is 62 years old, while the mean is also around there, at 62.4 years old. The age distribution is shown below.

Data Source: Forbes; Only those whose age is disclosed is included

The next chart shows the list of the 10 youngest and oldest billionaires in 2012.

Data Source: Forbes; Only those whose age is disclosed is included

You can see their source of wealth and country of citizenship here. 4 of these 10 youngest billionaires derived their wealth from Facebook.

10 Youngest Billionaires in 2012

Rank	Name	Age	Net Worth (US$B)	Source	Country
35	Mark Zuckerberg	27	17.5	Facebook	United States
314	Dustin Moskovitz	27	3.5	Facebook	United States
854	Albert von Thurn und Taxis	28	1.5	diversified	Germany
270	Scott Duncan	29	4.1	Pipelines	United States
223	Yang Huiyan	30	4.7	real estate	China
634	Eduardo Saverin	30	2	Facebook	United States
960	Fahd Hariri	31	1.3	construction, investments	Lebanon
601	Sean Parker	32	2.1	Facebook	United States
960	Ayman Hariri	33	1.3	construction, investments	Lebanon
634	Yvonne Bauer & family	34	2	Bauer Media Group	Germany

10 Oldest Billionaires in 2012

Rank	Name	Age	Net Worth (US$B)	Source	Country
248	Walter Haefner	101	4.3	software	Switzerland
491	David Rockefeller Sr	96	2.5	Standard Oil, banking	United States
223	Karl Wlaschek	94	4.7	retail	Austria
344	Kirk Kerkorian	94	3.3	casinos, investments	United States
683	Albert Ueltschi	94	1.9	FlightSafety	United States
578	Henry Hillman	93	2.2	Investments	United States
10	Karl Albrecht	92	25.4	Aldi	Germany
61	Anne Cox Chambers	92	12.5	media	United States
169	Sulaiman Al Rajhi & family	92	5.9	banking	Saudi Arabia
578	George Mitchell	92	2.2	oil & gas	United States

See the next series of graphs and analysis in Part 2 (Billionaires by Country and Continent) and Part 3 (Billionaires by Industry). 

[Updated: Added list of ten youngest and oldest billionaires]

Data Source: Forbes; Graphs: Generated by me

Graph: World – Population and GDP by Country (Part 2)

This graph is a continuation of an earlier post, showing the GDP and population by country, as well as the GDP per capita (which is the gradient of each data point). It zooms into the “2^nd tier” of countries (see the red box in the chart below).

Data Source: World Bank

This next chart zooms into the red box from the chart above.

Data Source: World Bank

Out of this 2^nd tier group highlighted, we can see 2 main groups:

a)   2^nd tier high-income group: This group consists of the next tier of rich and big European countries (France, UK, Italy, maybe Spain and Netherlands), Canada, Australia and South Korea. Their GDP per capita are all high, ranging from $20,000 to $47,000.

b)    2^nd tier middle-income group: This group consists of the next tier of large developing economies – Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Turkey. Their GDP per capita all hover around the world GDP per capita – ranging from $9,000 to $11,000. We can call this group the “BRMT” group, but I guess this acronym doesn’t sound as nice as “BRIC”.

See Part1 and Part 3 here.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: 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