Random Business Facts
Here are some business facts that I found very interesting. I will be posting more random facts daily.
The construction company Kongo Gumi started in year 578 in Japan and it was a family firm. The oldest newspaper still in circulation is “Post och Inrikes Tidningar” from Sweeden and it was established in year 1645. Interestingly, the “Northampton Daily Hampshire Gazette” was established in 1756 in the US and is still in circulation. The Economist was established in 1843. Time magazine has by far the largest circulation in the world according to 2005 statistics. The world’s biggest firms according to market value (2005) are General Electric (US), Exxon Mobil (US), Microsoft (US), Citigroup (US), BP (UK), Wal-Mart (US), etc. Since 1980, the four biggest bankruptcies in America were WorldCom, Enron, Conseco, and Texaco.
Coca-Cola products are sold in more then 200 countries, approximately 1.3 billion beverage servings per day. Genera Motors reached over 50% of the US car market in 1960s and fell to around 25% in the early 2005. Microsoft sales went over 1 million in 1978, over 1 billion in 1990, over 10 billion in 1997. Starbucks operates in about 9,000 locations in 36 countries. More than 138 million customers visit Wal-Mart stores every week. Jeff Bezos of Amazon originally wanted to call his firm Cadabra as in abracadabra. BMW, or Bayerische Motoren Werke, was founded in Munich, Germany in 1917, originally to construct aircraft engines. Pierre Omidyar of eBay wanted to use the name of his Internet consultancy, Echo Bay Technology Group, but changed it to ebay because Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had already registered the name. Google was taken from the word googol, a vast number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. The American sports-equipment company Nike is named after the Greek goddess of victory. Nokia is named after a small town in Finland. Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working for the CIA as consultants on a project codenamed Oracle. The project funding ended but the three decided to finish the work and keep the name for their software company.
If you enjoy reading such facts, come back, I will post new business facts every day.
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