A study by City Index revealed the financial reports of the worlds biggest brands to reveal exactly how long it took each to make their first $1 billion, as well as how fast they make a billion today.

They compared this data to how fast it would take the world's biggest brands to make the average UK salary, and the results are mind-boggling:

1. Walmart – 2.16 seconds

Industry: Retail
Total Revenue: $500,343,000,000
First Billion:18 years
Latest Billion: 0.7 days
Did you know?
While McDonald’s recently announced plans to roll out more self-service pay kiosks, Walmart revealed plans to bring more cashiers back. The move came after reports that self-service checkouts hadn’t helped operating margins and left customers unsatisfied.

2. Apple – 4.32 seconds

Industry: Tech
Total Revenue: $265,595,000,000
First Billion: 14 years
Latest Billion: 1.4 days
Did you know?
In August 2018, Apple became the first public company in the world to hit the trillion-dollar mark after share prices rose to $207.05, sending the tech giant to all-new heights. This landmark moment came just 42 years after the company was founded.

3. Amazon – 6.48 seconds

Industry: Retail
Total Revenue: $177,866,000,000
First Billion: 5 years
Latest Billion: 2.1 days
Did you know?
In June 2018, Investopedia named America ‘the United States of Amazon’ as the company’s Prime memberships tipped over the 100m mark. Fast forward to September of the same year and the retail kings became the second $1 trillion company, just weeks after Apple became the first to hit this impressive milestone.

4. Walgreens - 8.64 seconds

Industry: Retail
Total Revenue: $131,537,000,000
First Billion: 110 years
Latest Billion: 2.8 days
Did you know?
Walgreens recently revealed it had spent $500 million on building, testing, and implementing new IT systems for its US stores, with plans to spend a further $500 million. This news came as the brand faced competition after CVS Heath bought out the country’s third largest health insurer and Amazon announced plans to enter the pharmacy market

5. Google - 10.19 seconds

Industry: Tech
Total Revenue: $110,855,000,000
First Billion: 5 years
Latest Billion: 3.3 days
Did you know?
Google was fined $2.7 billion for breaching European Union antitrust rules in June 2017 after it was found to be using its search engine to steer users to its own shopping platform. Luckily for the tech giants, this figure was dwarfed by its $110 billion revenue in the same year.

6. Microsoft - 10.19 seconds

Industry: Tech
Total Revenue: $110,360,000,000
First Billion: 15 years
Latest Billion: 3.3 days
Did you know?
In October 2018, Microsoft announced it had acquired coding platform GitHub for $7.5bn, expanding the brand’s developer tool and services offering. The deal is rumoured to have made GitHub’s three founders billionaires.

7. Target - 15.75 seconds

Industry: Retail
Total Revenue: $71,879,000,000
First Billion: 87 years
Latest Billion: 5.1 days
Did you know?
In a bid to fend off competition from Amazon and bring its business model up to date, Target purchased same-day delivery service Shipt in 2017 for $550 million. Target is hoping that its $99 annual Shipt membership ($20 cheaper than Amazon Prime) and commitment to delivering a wider range of products will see it eat into Amazon’s profits throughout 2019.

8. Walt Disney - 18.83 seconds

Industry: Entertainment
Total Revenue: $59,434,000,000
First Billion: 69 years
Latest Billion: 6.1 days
Did you know?
The bidding war to takeover 21st Century Fox isn’t the first time Disney and Comcast have come to blows. In 2004, Disney curbed Comcast’s unsolicited bid to take it over, which caused a huge rift between Disney CEO Bob Iger and Comcast CEO Brian L. Roberts.

9. Facebook – 27.79 seconds

Industry: Tech
Total Revenue: $40,653,000,000
First Billion: 6 years
Latest Billion: 9 days
Did you know?
Facebook shares were down 7% in March 2018 after a data scandal dominated the headlines around the world, equating to an estimated loss of $40 billion. Chief Strategy Officer of GBH Insights, Daniel Ives, commented that the social media channel could lose $5 billion in annual revenue if it failed to assure its users and government agencies.

10. Time Warner Inc – 36.12 seconds

Industry: Entertainment
Total Revenue: $31,271,000,000
First Billion: 7 years
Latest Billion: 11.7 days
Did you know?
With around 26,000 employees worldwide, Time Warner’s impressive entertainment property portfolio includes Warner Bros., HBO, New Line, and Cartoon Network. Blockbusters such as Wonder Woman, Dunkirk, and It contributed to the company’s $31.3 billion revenue in 2017.

“Potential for growth in today’s market is significantly greater than before”

Fiona Cincotta, a Senior Market Analyst at www.cityindex.co.uk, said: “The markets have changed dramatically over the past 30 years, not just in composition, but also how quickly a firm can grow. From the data, the earlier the business was founded, the longer it took to reach its first billion in revenue.  

“While firms founded at the turn of the last century, such as Walgreens or Target, have taken over 100 years to hit the $1 billion mark, more recently founded companies such as Facebook or Amazon have hit the milestone in next to no time. Potential for growth in today’s market is significantly greater than before. 

“It also comes as no surprise that while tech firms and retailers are among the quickest companies to hit $1 billion in revenue, but traditional retailers are the slowest. This is yet another piece of evidence highlighting the struggles that more traditional retailers on the high street are up against as shopper’s habits move away from bricks and mortar stores to online shopping and technology."

(Source: City Index)

Online research from Equifax reveals over half (51%) of Brits under 45 years old would be interested in banking products or services from technology giants like Apple, Amazon or Google. Of those, 45% said that products or services like loans, credit cards or current account from these technology companies would only appeal to them if they offered better value than their existing bank.

Across all age groups, the level of interest in banking products from leading technology firms falls to 40%, with over a quarter (27%) of Brits stating they would rather use their existing bank as they’re more familiar with them.

Jake Ranson, Banking and Financial Institution expert and CMO at Equifax Ltd, said, said: “The recent announcement that Apple is joining forces with Goldman Sachs to launch a consumer credit card highlights how tech companies plan to shake up the banking industry, creating products and services to compete against the big high street banking names as well as newer digital entrants.

“Although a sense of brand familiarity pins many people to their current bank, there’s an appetite for new products and a desire for alternatives that can offer something genuinely different. The tech giants have a loyal brand following in their own right, if they can combine this with a competitive product offering we’ll see an interesting shift in dynamics as the fight to attract customers heats up.”

(Source: Equifax)

Billions lost, reputations ruined and company's that never recover. Business can be unforgiving. Saying yes to the wrong idea can lose you and your company millions or even result in bankruptcy and the demise of a business. So you have to make sure that the decisions you make are correct. But sometimes businesses get it very, very wrong, with disastrous consequences. So what are the worst decisions ever made in business history?

Welcome to Finance Monthly's video countdown of the Top 10 Worst Business Decisions in History. We examine the 10 most catastrophic choices made by companies ever and the effect each of these. Every one of the mergers, or new business ideas in the video above resulted in severe consequences for the parties involved, whether it be huge financial losses or reputational damage. In some cases, it was the reluctance to see a glittering opportunity in front of their own own eyes that led to the eventual demise of some of the industry's heaviest hitters. From Apple and Coca-Cola to Star Wars, we explore the business decisions that have cost companies and businessmen millions.

So sit back and enjoy our video highlighting the 10 worst business decisions ever made.

Have we missed any disastrous decisions that cost companies millions? Let us know in the comments below.

Apple Inc. is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the plans. Bloomberg's Ian King reports on "Bloomberg Markets."

Apple makes an astonishing amount of money but this presents an interesting challenge for the company and raises questions about what they should do with it all.

Time to say goodbye to the gadgets and services that met their demise this year, including Windows Phone, the Kinect, 3D TVs, Apple's Shuffle and Nano, and AIM.

While Apple reportedly struggles to get the iPhone X off its feet and into the market, stumbling on obstacles it knew would come about, such as developing proper facial recognition and delivering on its aggressive production schedule, global stock markets are fluctuating on the back of several factors, from the disastrous hurricanes to bad European weather and Brexit talk. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas are still ahead of us however.

Here Lee Wild, Head of Equity Strategy at Interactive Investor, provides an overview of the current global stock economy, as US markets and Japan’s Nikkei put London into perspective:

“The mood on many global stock markets might well be described as exuberant, but not irrational. Yes, it took less than six weeks for the Dow Jones to add the last 1,000 points to top 23,000, but latest US company quarterly earnings are beating expectations - look at IBM's fightback overnight - and president Trump's tax plans could still deliver a boost to the bottom line.

“Japan's Nikkei has just hit a two-decade high, but exports there have risen for a tenth straight month amid demand for Japanese technology.

“That puts what's happening in London into perspective. Investors are right to be concerned about a recent spate of high-profile profit warnings, and Brexit presents its own set of special circumstances, but many companies are delivering strong results and valuations are not excessive.

“Of course, the market will correct at some point. Chatter has picked up in recent weeks following profit warnings from blue-chips GKN, Mondi, ConvaTec and Merlin, but this bunch are not a fair indicator of the market as a whole.

“Unilever's highly-rated shares have come off the boil as bad weather affected sales of its Magnum and Ben & Jerry's ice creams in Europe during the third-quarter, while hurricanes in Florida and Texas held back the Americas. However, underlying sales in emerging markets still grew 6.3% and volumes were up. With just a few months of the financial year left, annual group underlying sales are still expected to grow 3-5% and profit margins improve.

“Don't be surprised to see a pullback between now and Christmas in some markets which have raced ahead this year, but it's unlikely to be the crash everyone is predicting. While inflation is currently outstripping wages growth, the UK unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1975 and any small rise in interest rates will not pull the rug from under this market.”

Richard Meirion-Williams, Head of Financial Services at BJSS discusses how banks can counteract the threat provided by Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon (GAFA).

It wasn’t long ago that bank branches used to hold personal, trusted relationships with their local customers. However, since the rise of digital banking and the decline of the branch, relationships between bank provider and customer have weakened. While the financial institutions are under pressure to keep up with digital transformation, at the same time demand for a personalised customer experience is high on the banking agenda.

Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, the major technology power players, known as GAFA, are transforming the digital banking landscape as we know it. With a huge pool of customer data at their fingertips, GAFA’s move into financial services is simply a natural extension of their current offering. When you consider the vast amount of data that these tech giants can leverage across social media, mobile, customer purchase information and mapping data, GAFA has the ability to provide a highly personalised financial service experience.

For banks to remain central in the lives of consumers, they must provide consistent and fulfilling customer experiences across the digital and physical environment. It’s not just about having access to customers credit or debit accounts, but also a greater/wider insight into their individual customers.

But time is of the essence. Amazon, Apple, Google, Intuit and PayPal have already formed a coalition called Financial Innovation Now to enhance innovation in the financial industry to satisfy the customer need for convenience. The key for traditional financial providers is to act quickly and respond to emerging digital disruptors like GAFA. Banks need to focus on evolving their business models and developing new revenue streams.

4 steps to challenge the GAFA force

Client on-boarding: Banks need to maintain their competitive differentiation and make products available immediately. Recently banks have focused on improving the front-end process. But what about the back-end? By digitising the full spectrum banks can reap the rewards of full end-to-end capabilities. This will mean customers opening an account can get started up in minutes after completing an online application. Making changes to the digital process will also help improve the processes which co-exist in physical branches.

Personalised services and partnering for suppliers and customers: Customer centricity should be at the heart of every business. Banks need to create personalised services to deliver their products using an agile approach. This can be achieved either through the bank or a third-party.

To meet consumer demand for convenience and choice, banks should also look to offer customers “lifestyle” services that can adapt in real-time to fulfil the everyday needs of the banking user. Not only will this help multiply customer interactions but will also help generate new revenue streams.

Leverage Consumers data: Extrapolate customer insights from the vast amount of structured and unstructured customer data using Artificial Intelligence, NLP and cognitive computing. The customer financial information can be leveraged to create market intelligence and to generate new revenue streams.

Create an ecosystem: Banks should take advantage of open environments and create new ecosystems. This could be offering external or white-labelling banking services through open APIs and new partnership models with innovative fintechs or working alongside GAFA. Banks need to develop new products and services on distributed ledgers for transactional access on a continual basis and receive data and events from third parties like Amazon or Apple who can distribute and integrate their products in a broader business environment.

This approach will help counter the GAFA threat and create greater cross and upselling opportunities, along with building customer acquisition, retention and cost optimisation, transforming the cost-to-income ratio from the current average of 63% to hopefully less than 50%*. It is critical for banks to think innovatively and act quickly, otherwise they will become a victim of the GAFA dominance which has already infiltrated other industries.

*Calculation made based on reviewing the published accounts of a number of banks.

Google made several jokes about Apple and the new iPhone at its event to show the Pixel 2. They took aim at Apple's storage problems and its perceived aloofness.

Interactive Investor, the online investment platform, has recently released its clients’ most traded investments, by number of trades, in September 2017.

Commenting on the results, Lee Wild, Head of Equity Strategy at Interactive Investor, said: “It was all about inflation, interest rates and tapering during September, so little wonder central banks dominated proceedings. US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who’ll begin slowly winding down the Fed’s $4.5 trillion balance sheet this month, prepped markets for a rate hike in December then another three in 2018.  Not to be left out, Bank of England governor Mark Carney turned hawk as inflation hit 2.9%, confirming that a first increase in UK borrowing costs for over a decade just got a whole lot closer.

“The obvious benefits of higher interest rates had the British pound up as much as 5% against the dollar and at a post-EU referendum high. Rate rises are typically good news for the banking sector, with lenders quicker to raise borrowing costs than they are to offer better deals to savers. It may not be great for consumers, but an improvement in bank margins should feed through to shareholders by way of bigger profits and dividends.

“It’s why investors’ favourite Lloyds Banking Group rallied 6% in September and remained the most popular blue-chip stock on the Interactive Investor platform last month. Vodafone blasted back into the Top Five. Apple’s launch of the iPhone 8 should get the tills ringing, and the fastest growing broadband operator in Europe offers an irresistible dividend yield of over 6%.

“As one would expect, there was plenty of excitement on AIM. Online fashion retailer Boohoo.com is a member of AIM’s exclusive ten-bagger club, but the shares are hardly cheap, so tweaking margin guidance lower in its half-year results gave traders a scare. So did joint-CEO Carol Kane’s decision to sell £10.7 million of Boohoo shares in the aftermath.

“However, a 25% plunge in the share price always looked harsh given aggressive growth forecasts. It’s why trading volume more than tripled in September and buyers outnumbered sellers two-to-one.

More spectacular, however, was the explosion in activity at Frontera Resources. There are 13.4 billion shares in issue worth less than a penny each, but the £100 million company is no tiddler. Frontera’s liquidity, typified by tight spreads, volatility and an intriguing story make it a firm favourite among small-cap investors. At the beginning of September, the shares were worth just 0.1125p, but before the month was out it was 0.782p, an increase of 595%.

“There’s real excitement around Frontera’s Ud-2 well in Georgia because it sits in the Mtsare Khevi gas complex, where experts estimate a potential recoverable resource of 5.8 trillion cubic feet of gas. Following a series of progress reports, the number of trades on the Interactive Investor platform swelled twelvefold in September versus the previous month.”

Rebecca O’Keeffe, Head of Investment at Interactive Investor, adds: “Yet again, the big active funds of Fundsmith Equity, Woodford Income and Lindsell Train Global occupy the top three spots, with our investors continuing to prefer active management in the current environment. With currencies driving markets and sector moves more pronounced, there is greater potential for active managers to add value.

“Although the top three are all active, passive funds remain relatively popular and Vanguard 100 muscled its way back into the Top Five, knocking out Jupiter India in the process. Vanguard have taken over as the preferred option for many clients, with 15 Vanguard funds in the Top 100 most bought funds year-to-date. The compound effect of lower fees is significant and over the long term this can add tens of thousands to your portfolio value, making low-cost tracker funds highly attractive for investors.”

(Source: Interactive Investor)

Big technology brands are proving irresistible to today’s investors, data from award-winning investment game app Invstr has shown.

Experts from the innovative fintech company extracted investment game data from their users in more than 170 countries, and found that, in the six months up to July 31^st, outside of silver and gold, familiar consumer-facing brands such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Samsung were the most traded instruments.

Looking further into the data, Invstr found that keeping hold of those big brands could prove a lucrative exercise; the top 10 instruments from the last six months have gone up in value by almost 15% on average.

Plus, the tech companies have been core to that group success. Facebook (27.04% increase), Samsung (23.21%), Amazon (18.67%) and Apple (15.52%) have all experienced hefty growth since February 1, 2017.

Invstr also looked at statistics for the last month (July 3-31) and three months (May 1-July 31), and found that Invstr users were still going strong on the markets with group growth of 8.72% and 4.17% across the top 10 instruments respectively. Tech stocks continued to feature strongly.

Kerim Derhalli, founder and CEO of Invstr, said: “It’s evident from the Invstr data that investors find comfort with the big brands they know and love. Whether it’s the last month, three months or six months, they’ve tended to dominate our top 10 most traded instruments – and it seems to be paying off over longer periods.

“However, everything can change and investors should make sure they are up to speed on the latest price changes and news. Even with growth over the last six months going well, the likes of Apple and Facebook dropped heavily in June before bouncing back in July.

“What we know for sure is that, by gaining more knowledge and understanding of the financial markets, investors can make much more informed decisions which will see their chances of investment success increase.”

Invstr’s top traded instruments

(Source: Investr)