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Internet Giants: Who Owns Who on the Web

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Internet Giants: Who Owns Who on the Web

Internet Giants: Who Owns Who on the Web

View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.

In the brick and mortar world, decades of consolidation has led certain conglomerates to wield massive amounts of control in the banking, consumer goods, alcohol, and auto sectors.

And although the internet is incredibly vast in scale and much newer, it’s also heading in a similar direction.

As a result, it’s not unusual to see behemoths like Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon leveraging their size, networks, and market leading positions to buy up competitors while also making other strategic acquisitions. This ongoing consolidation has created a vast web of subsidiaries, providing each parent organization with additional insurance in maintaining their position at the top of the digital food chain.

The Connected Web

Today’s infographic comes to us from 16Best, and it shows the companies or websites that are owned by the bigger fish.

They fall into two categories, generally:

1. Gobbling Up the Competition
What better way to ensure dominance than to eat up all of the smaller fish that do the same thing you do?

Look at Expedia, a company that owns fellow travel sites Travelocity, Hotels.com, Trivago, Orbitz, Hotwire, and CarRentals.com. Another example is Groupon, a company that bought competitor LivingSocial, as well as Crazeal (originally a local deal site in India).

2. Strategy and Tactics
Whether it is future proofing, apparent synergies, or filling a weakness, this broad category makes up the majority of situations. Here we see the internet giants making strategic acquisitions to ensure future success.

A good example of this is Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus, which allows the social network giant to enter into the VR business – the exact type of new venture that would be nearly impossible to do without help and expertise in a complex technical field.

Correction: A previous version of this graphic listed PayPal as a subsidiary of eBay. PayPal was spun off into a separate publicly traded company in 2015.

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Mapped: Internet Download Speeds by Region

North America and East Asia have the speediest internet.

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Map illustrating median download speeds in each global region.

Mapped: Internet Download Speeds by Region

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In today’s fast-paced world, internet speed isn’t just a convenience—it’s the driving force behind how we work, play, and connect.

In this map, we illustrate median download speeds in each global region, based on data from the World Bank’s Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023.

North America and East Asia Have the Speediest Internet

According to the World Bank, download speeds in high-income countries increased significantly between 2019 and 2023, while speeds in lower-income countries stagnated.

As of 2022, North America and East Asia have the speediest internet.

RegionMedian mobile download speed (Mb/sec)Median fixed broadband download speed (Mb/sec)
East Asia & Pacific90171
Europe & Central Asia4485
Latin America & the Caribbean2674
Middle East & North Africa3636
North America83193
South Asia2743
Sub-Saharan Africa1615

This difference in broadband speeds can mainly be attributed to investment.

In 2020, nearly 90% of global telecommunication investment came from East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, and North America. These regions not only concentrate the highest-income population but also the top technology hubs.

Meanwhile, low- and middle-income regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for less than 10% of total investment.

Most of the investment is directed towards fiber optic and 5G mobile networks. According to the mobile industry association GSMA, mobile operators alone are projected to invest more than $600 billion between 2022 and 2025, with 85% of the total allocated for 5G.

In 2023, broadband speeds in high-income countries were 10x faster for fixed connections, and 5x faster for mobile connections compared to those in low-income countries.

Fixed broadband connections, which provide high-speed internet to residences or businesses, reached 38% of the population in high-income countries. In comparison, fixed broadband penetration was only 4% of the population in lower-middle-income countries and almost zero in low-income countries.

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