For a number of industries (such as banking, media, food and beverage, and oil), a few large companies dominate globally. Here is an interesting infographic from www.internationalbusinessguide.org.
Click the infographic to access data on the firms cited in the chart.
Source: InternationalBusinessGuide.org
I have seen a lot of the graphs in other classes, and really shows you how a few companies own a majority of the markets. It is no wonder that large brand names are becoming the majority of american businesses. Even scarier is that Comcast has recently agreed to buy Time Warner, meaning that they will own roughly 2/5ths of the market. Also its interesting to see how JP morgan’s chain has been so successful since his escapades in the 1800s. when he was one of the richest men in the world.
Despite of those examples, I thought P&G and Unilever are interesting as well. P&G and Unilever make those products that consumer make low involvement consumption. In some term, consumer may simply read the description on a shampoo bottle to change from one brand to another because the new one fulfill their needs more as the description. However, maybe both of the brands are belonging to some company. The two big companies have great income no doubt has have the greater power to have more product line to satisfy consumers and occupy the more market share as well.
I think it is interesting to see how a few companies are capable of controlling a vast amount of other “smaller companies.” Last semester I did a project where I had to choose a Fortune 500 company and write a report on its financial statements. My group chose Kraft Foods, and I was amazed by how many brands were owned by this company. After looking at the list, it made sense that Kraft brands can be found 98% of American households. This infographic also shows how a small number of large companies can own a large portion of their industry on a global scale.
Looking at this graphic, it is honestly frightening. As Americans we like to believe we live in a relatively free nation, which includes free entry into industries, but this graphic shows that this isn’t the case. For example, PEPSICO owns so much of the food and beverage industry it would be near impossible for a new, smaller brand to enter the market and be successful. This graphic really opened my eyes to how limited the ownership in industries is. I believe this is unfair, and should be addressed. Every company should have a fair chance to do business, and these large companies owning almost the entire industry make that extremely difficult or impossible.
It’s not surprising to see how few companies own pretty much everything in the world. These companies start, succeed, grow, and acquire/merge with others. ExxonMobil used to be independent companies. JP Morgan and Chase Bank used to be independent. Once these companies establish themselves and continue to grow rapidly, they acquire other smaller companies in their industry or in unrelated industries.
Looking at this, it is really shocking to see just how much these companies own. It is virtually impossible for another company to come into play because of all these companies own. I was also thrown by Nestle. They own a variety of different companies, which I didn’t expect. They own companies from dog food to, cosmetics.
Seeing how much wealth and power these companies have is disturbing. America should be the land of opportunity but it will never be because no one can possibly compete with those numbers. With hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue these companies can basically control the world if they wanted to.
Not this exact chart, but I have seen many very similar to it in the past so I was not all that surprised by its findings. However, it does not make it any less alarming every time statistics like these are published. I feel guilty buying into so many of these major companies. I fear that they keep getting greedier and are becoming selfish gluttons. These enormous corporations are becoming so powerful and there may be one day where they have no competition at all and have complete control over the markets. That’s scary.