
Three biggest Internet companies in each country - maris
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/07/daily-chart-6
======
LeonM
I am Dutch, so naturally I checked the top 3 for the Netherlands. Number 3
(Booking.com) and number 1 (Marktplaats.nl, the dutch craigslist), I can
understand because they are indeed big and well-known sites.

However, the number 2, apparently, is a website called "Shapeways", which is
supposedly worth $175M. I have never heard of it and I asked some of my
colleagues and they never heard of it either. After visiting shapeways I found
that it is a 3D printing community site. After some research I found that it
is actually founded in the USA, and just happens to have an office in the
Netherlands.

~~~
AndriusWSR
Hi, WSR team here. Great comment!

The Netherlands have an interesting situation. Even though everyone would say
the startup ecosystem is booming, the country has not managed to produce BIG
success stories. We selected Shapeways as one of the top 3 companies there.
They've raised almost $50M to date
([http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/shapeways](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/shapeways))
and we put our guesstimate in a range of $150M - $200M. The company is
actually founded by Dutch founders and they do have quite a big number of
their employees in the Netherlands (close to 50 but should double-check on
this one).

With that in mind, it'd be interesting to hear what would you put as the 2nd
(or 3rd) most valuable Dutch internet company? Thanks!

~~~
LeonM
I'd like to name these companies off the top of my head:

bol.com: originally started in Germany, but head office is in the Netherlands.
They are the "dutch" Amazon, with 405 million euros in sales in 2012 [0], the
same year it was also sold to Ahold for a reported 350 million.

coolblue: Dutch online electronics store, like newegg. They launched
specialized webshops for just about every category of consumer electronics.
They did 248 million euros in sales in 2013 [1]. All three founders made it
into the top 10 of wealthiest self-made dutch entrepreneurs below the age of
40 [2].

Takeaway.com: takeaway websites, best know for the dutch and belgian websites
"thuisbezorgd.nl" and "thuisbezorgd.be", which have a market share of 90% and
70% in their respective countries. They received a 74 million euro ($103 mln)
round B this year [3].

[0]
[http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol.com#Omzet_en_winst](http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol.com#Omzet_en_winst)
(dutch) [1]
[http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolblue](http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolblue)
(dutch) [2] [http://safility.blogspot.nl/2013/08/overzicht-met-
internetmi...](http://safility.blogspot.nl/2013/08/overzicht-met-
internetmiljonairs-op-de_12.html) (dutch) [3]
[http://corporate.takeaway.com/Over+ons/Nieuwsarchief/2](http://corporate.takeaway.com/Over+ons/Nieuwsarchief/2)

------
wsr
World Startup Report team here. It's awesome to see our data on HN!

One interesting point to note is that out of the top 7 countries, none of them
are from Europe. To put into context, the biggest internet company in Europe
is merely 1/40th of the size of Google.

HOWEVER, Europe dominates the unicorn club (companies over $1b in valuation).
Nearly half of 30 countries on the unicorn club list are European.

This prompts the question, is European market big enough but fragmented in
such way that you can easily build mini-billion dollar companies, but never
anything truly massive?

We'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

Also, AndriusWSR (lead researcher behind this research) will be joining us
shortly to answer a few questions. Please feel free to ask away.

~~~
yxhuvud
What do you mean by unicorn club?

~~~
wozniacki
Could be this?

 _1) We found 39 companies belong to what we call the “Unicorn Club” (by our
definition, U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at
over $1 billion by public or private market investors). That’s about .07
percent of venture-backed consumer and enterprise software startups._

 _2) On average, four unicorns were born per year in the past decade, with
Facebook being the breakout “super-unicorn” (worth >$100 billion). In each
recent decade, 1-3 super unicorns have been born._

[http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/unicorn-...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/unicorn-
graph1c.png)

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-
club...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/)

------
PaulRobinson
Hilariously inaccurate because of the focus on "Internet companies", a vague
term at best.

Apple is missing at a market cap today of $578 billion, and whilst a lot of
that is down to hardware, they have an internet office suite, the largest
number of online registered users with credit cards on their DB in the World
and probably shift more data than Facebook just in app downloads.

BT Group is missing from the UK despite a market cap of £30 billion. Without
them, there is no UK Internet. They were developing hypertext systems in the
1980s.

Others have pointed out mistakes elsewhere in the data for other countries - I
sense that without context, this data is mostly useless and uncitable.

~~~
frogpelt
They probably tried to focus on companies that began as internet companies.
Microsoft and Apple most certainly did not. Google, Facebook, and Amazon most
certainly did.

~~~
adventured
Naspers is not an Internet company, and didn't start as one. Listing Naspers
is equivalent to listing Time Warner, Disney, Reuters, or Bloomberg. It's
silly at best.

I'd say they filled in weak data points when it was convenient.

------
onion2k
Britain's biggest three are ASOS (online clothing retailer), JustEat (online
takeaway ordering) and Wonga (online short term loans at ludicrous interest
rates). A sad state of affairs for a technologically advanced country.

Finland's top three are all Free To Play gaming companies. That's interesting.
Is there some sort of tax incentive for gaming companies there?

~~~
adamt
The British list would appear to have some omissions. E.g. online real-estate
site Rightmove (LON:RMV - has market cap $3.76Bn) is bigger than JustEat and
Wonga.

~~~
AndriusWSR
Adam, thanks so much for the information. Indeed, our World Startup Report was
not aware of this company. We will update our data (can't promise that the
Economist will change their infographic though). Thanks again!

~~~
PaulRobinson
How can you allow your data to be cited when you have so little clue about the
markets you're talking about?

------
ValentineC
I am shocked that The Economist, a publication I respected in the past, would
use a single source without performing further fact-checking.

For example, migme is headquartered in Singapore (and listed on the Australian
stock exchange), so it's surprising that they're featured under Indonesia.
There are probably more discrepancies to this chart that should be corrected.

------
VMG
General observation: Log scale!

Observations regarding Germany: Rocket Internet (#1) specializes in copying
foreign companies, like creating the "Zappos" clone "Zalando", which is #2.

~~~
AndriusWSR
Great point. We had our concerns about Rocket as well. In the end, we've put
them as #1, with Zalando on the list as well. It seems that Rocket does not
hold a stake in Zalando anymore
([http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/24/rocketinternet-
sha...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/24/rocketinternet-shareholders-
idUSL6N0P523X20140624))

------
ig1
The data seems pretty inconsistent, for example Skype is included but
Supercell isn't (both acquired). Also attribution to country isn't consistent.
Sometimes the founding country is used and sometimes the current HQ location
is used.

------
wsr
Dear All -

World Startup Report team here. There have been many repeated questions in
this thread, so we compiled all them into a single long answer for everyone.

At World Startup Report, our goal was to show the world how big of an internet
company you can build in each country. We have partnered with Startup Genome,
as well as worked closely with Startup Digest and Hackers/Founders network to
collect all this data.

As we proceeded, we lowered our goal of covering 100 countries to covering 50
since we aimed to find the most reliable (as well as interesting) data. Our
methodology included looking at publicly available data (stock market), online
publications from sources like Financial Times, TechCrunch, The Next Web, etc.
or sometimes even personal conversations with those companies. The definition
of internet companies was: no ISPs, no software development houses (unless
they have online products they are selling), no hardware companies. If a
company is diversified (as was usually the case) we looked at the revenue
breakdown and searched for the highest internet-related revenue streams.

However, we do accept the fact that this information is constantly changing
(we had to replace a few companies due to various reasons (even bankruptcy)
over the course of our month-long research). At the same time, we are aware
that there could have been a few omissions and this is the price we are
willing to pay to show the public the best available data there is on the web
right now.

One last thing, we've put up our raw data on Silk, so you could play around
with it as it is easier to visualize it.

[http://internet-hall-of-
fame.silk.co/explore/table/collectio...](http://internet-hall-of-
fame.silk.co/explore/table/collection/companies/column/country/column/industry/column/value/order/asc/country)

If you'd like to help us make it better, or contribute with information about
your country, please contact us at hello@worldstartupreport.com

\-- The World Startup Report Team

------
lukasm
The graph is misleading. South Africa Naspers owns Allegro (1st Poland).
Secondly, Allegro, which is polish Ebay, has almost whole market share in
Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus etc. and possibly that contributes to Naspers
value.

There is no nk.pl (polish facebook, 50% market share). It was sold for 200m a
few years ago.

Hard to compare valuation of private and public companies, especially in
different places. Better graph would with revenue, profit, growth.

~~~
AndriusWSR
Lukas, World Startup Report team here. We worked together with the Economist
putting this together.

We did look at private/public AND also acquired companies (in case of
Allegro).

Would you have a source for the acquisition information? Keep in mind that we
looked at 3 companies per country in which case it could have only been
coincidence. Our goal was to show the relative extent of what is possible in
different countries rather than to provide an exact estimate of each company.

~~~
lukasm
first google hits [http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/27/poalnds-facebook-nasza-
klas...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/27/poalnds-facebook-nasza-klasa-
rumoured-to-be-for-sale-for-e130m/)

Also onet.pl PLN 1.4 billion (€335 million).

[http://www.digitaltveurope.net/23115/tvn-in-move-to-sell-
one...](http://www.digitaltveurope.net/23115/tvn-in-move-to-sell-onet-pl-to-
ringier-axel-springer/)

------
Len0
Wow, there is entry for Kosovo but not for Bosnia, Croatia or Serbia. They
could've summed this whole region under Balkans.

~~~
AndriusWSR
Initially, we were aiming at covering 100 countries. However, due to lack of
data from some countries we cut it down to 50.

We are working with our global community of contributors and we are looking
for people who are willing to help us. If interested, just send us an email:
hello@worldstartupreport.com

------
viblo
For sweden I wonder why not Betsson is included? Its market cap is almost
double that of Klarna, the current 3rd company? PaddyPower (another online
betting company) is included for Ireland.

It might be more missing, but this was easy to spot since Im both swedish and
very familiar with Betsson.

------
pdknsk
The source is here, with the raw data linked at the bottom of the page.

[http://www.worldstartupwiki.org/page/Internet_Hall_Of_Fame](http://www.worldstartupwiki.org/page/Internet_Hall_Of_Fame)

Also answers the question I had about how they figured out the valuation of
non-public companies.

> Valuation data comes from: stock market data (highest point in the history
> of the company was selected), acquisition value, valuation at the latest
> round of investment, or, as a last resort, a guesstimate based on revenues
> and industry.

------
wallzz
Only 4 countries from Africa are listed , South Africa , Kenya , Algeria and
Ethiopia , I don't know how they acquired such data , but I can assume the
data is not accurate about the companies listed from Algeria (companies I
know). Also some big African market are not listed : Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria.
Or is it that the internet companies of these countries are many small
companies that compete and do not monopolizing the market?

------
wtracy
I was surprised to see Chile and Peru so far below Argentina. All the news
pieces that I see make Argentina sound like a communist dystopia.

Anyone know whether the Startup Chile program (where foreign startups
basically get a cash handout to physically relocate to Chile) is likely to
have an impact on this chart?

~~~
GFischer
Argentina is indeed a strange case, a capitalist society coexisting with a
socialist trending communist government.

In practice, most companies manage to navigate ("hack" :) ) the increasingly
ludicrous government impositions, and most know (or hope) many will be lifted
once the government changes hand (or another crisis explodes, which doesn't
seem far off).

Some do quit, it was interesting to read about the entrepreneurs behind
Wash.io having started a company in Argentina before, and quitting because it
was so much work for so little benefit:

[http://nymag.com/news/features/laundry-
apps-2014-5/](http://nymag.com/news/features/laundry-apps-2014-5/)

------
tormeh
What factors are needed for a country to have start-up success. We know SV
comes from defence money, but setting that outlier aside, what's the winning
formula?

China's success would suggest that a huge talent pool and protectionism
towards the big US internet companies is a winning move. Anything else?

------
dhruvbird
Google cache link:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3TBNlgP...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3TBNlgPN0XMJ:www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/07/daily-
chart-6+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
keerthiko
For the people missing one or two of the top three for each country, they are
underneath one of the others because their data points very close with similar
valuations (Facebook and Amazon in US).

Use the nifty filter buttons at the top of the graph to see first, second and
third companies separately.

------
guiomie
Living in Ottawa (Canada), I was surprised to see Shopify at no.3 with a 1
billion dollar valuation.

------
frogpelt
Somehow, Nigeria didn't make the list.

[http://arstechnica.com/security/2010/01/victims-
lost-93-bill...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2010/01/victims-
lost-93-billion-to-419-scammers-in-2009/)

------
coolandsmartrr
Seems like registration is required. Anyone have a registration-free method
for viewing?

~~~
taejo
Incognito mode

------
sriku
Side note - I was surprised by the number of trackers that ghostery showed on
the economist's site! [http://imgur.com/LftipWr](http://imgur.com/LftipWr)

------
jpswade
"United Kingdom" seems to be listed as "Britain".

------
davedx
Shapeways is 2nd in the Netherlands, ahead of Booking.com. I have to say I'm
quite surprised; I knew 3D printing was taking off but I didn't know it was
that popular.

------
drpgq
I don't know whether to depressed for Canada or not given some of the other
countries relative performance. I didn't expect Argentina to be so close
though.

------
iag
I am glad The Economist did the datab visualization in log scale. Otherwise,
US and China would be so dominant rest of the countries would be impossible to
see.

Very cool data indeed.

------
NicoJuicy
To bad most Belgian companies move immediatly because of The high taxes.

EG. Drupal moved.. That would probably a top 3 company :-)

------
mode80
Log scale seems a bad choice. (Did you gather that US companies exceed the
value of all others combined?)

------
gambiting
There are only 2 companies for a few countries, so that's not "three biggest".

~~~
alandarev
Looks like there are only two internet companies in USA

~~~
xelfer
There's like half a pixel you can hover over to the left of Amazon which shows
Facebook.

~~~
wallzz
works only if he have a retina display!

------
utkarsh42
Cool India at #3 with Flipkart. Quite a long way away from US n all though...

------
msh
what the hell is a internet company, I could not find a explanation?

For example, in denmark the largest company in their chart is unity. Thats a
gaming framework company, not really a internet company.

------
msravi
Surprised that Facebook doesn't make it to the top-3 in the US

~~~
msravi
My bad... it actually comes in at #3 and is hidden under amazon. You can
filter using the legend to see it.

------
instakill
Not exactly each country. Mine wasn't there.

------
grexi
Where is Austria?

~~~
wsr
Grexi -

As mentioned in another thread, The World Startup Report team aimed for 100
countries for this research, but realistically we were able to only get good
data for 50 countries for this research.

If your country is not on the list, and you would like to join us for the next
World Startup Report research as a representative for your country, please
email us: hello@worldstartupreport.com

We'd love for your help to participate in this community research!

