Chart of the Week
The Tech Takeover of Advertising in One Chart
The Tech Takeover of Advertising in One Chart
The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.
Both Alphabet and Facebook have carefully worked at crafting their public images.
Most people see these companies as forward-looking tech companies that are shaping our future through high-flying initiatives like Google X or Oculus VR. They put money into big moonshots that could potentially change the world, and their actions are closely followed by people in and outside of the technology sector.
But, despite these other initiatives and some diligent messaging, make no mistake – both Alphabet and Facebook are media companies that get their money from one source.
Advertising makes up the vast majority of their business, and they’ve both become very good at it.
True Ad Dominance
Earlier this year, we put together a chart that broke down the revenues of the large tech companies:
Facebook earns 97% of its revenue from ads. Meanwhile, Alphabet earns 88% from ads, while getting less than 1% of its revenue from moonshots (at least for now).
Alphabet and Facebook are so good at advertising, in fact, that traditional media can’t keep up – and as a result, companies like CBS, 21st Century Fox, and iHeartMedia are now fighting for scraps.
Three is a Crowd
It’s not just Alphabet and Facebook that have unlocked the secret to ad dominance. They were just the fastest to do so.
China’s search engine giant, Baidu, is quickly climbing the ranks as well. Even though growth slowed in 2016 due to changes in China’s ad rules, the company will eventually be the third-largest media giant in the world. If Baidu can bump ad revenues by another 20%, it’ll move past Comcast, which owns brands like NBCUniversal and Telemundo.
Microsoft is also making its presence felt, debuting in the Top 10 for the first time in 2016. Microsoft’s Bing search network is now in 36 countries, while making up 33% of the U.S. PC search market. On top of that, the company also acquired LinkedIn, which now contributes $1 billion in revenue to the coffers.
The sea change is still in process – but in a couple years, there may not be a single traditional media that makes the top five list for global ad revenues. The tech takeover continues.
Chart of the Week
The Road to Recovery: Which Economies are Reopening?
We look at mobility rates as well as COVID-19 recovery rates for 41 economies, to see which countries are reopening for business.

The Road to Recovery: Which Economies are Reopening?
COVID-19 has brought the world to a halt—but after months of uncertainty, it seems that the situation is slowly taking a turn for the better.
Today’s chart measures the extent to which 41 major economies are reopening, by plotting two metrics for each country: the mobility rate and the COVID-19 recovery rate:
- Mobility Index
This refers to the change in activity around workplaces, subtracting activity around residences, measured as a percentage deviation from the baseline. - COVID-19 Recovery Rate
The number of recovered cases in a country is measured as the percentage of total cases.
Data for the first measure comes from Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports, which relies on aggregated, anonymous location history data from individuals. Note that China does not show up in the graphic as the government bans Google services.
COVID-19 recovery rates rely on values from CoronaTracker, using aggregated information from multiple global and governmental databases such as WHO and CDC.
Reopening Economies, One Step at a Time
In general, the higher the mobility rate, the more economic activity this signifies. In most cases, mobility rate also correlates with a higher rate of recovered people in the population.
Here’s how these countries fare based on the above metrics.
Country | Mobility Rate | Recovery Rate | Total Cases | Total Recovered |
---|---|---|---|---|
Argentina | -56% | 31.40% | 14,702 | 4,617 |
Australia | -41% | 92.03% | 7,150 | 6,580 |
Austria | -100% | 91.93% | 16,628 | 15,286 |
Belgium | -105% | 26.92% | 57,849 | 15,572 |
Brazil | -48% | 44.02% | 438,812 | 193,181 |
Canada | -67% | 52.91% | 88,512 | 46,831 |
Chile | -110% | 41.58% | 86,943 | 36,150 |
Colombia | -73% | 26.28% | 25,366 | 6,665 |
Czechia | -29% | 70.68% | 9,140 | 6,460 |
Denmark | -93% | 88.43% | 11,512 | 10,180 |
Finland | -93% | 81.57% | 6,743 | 5,500 |
France | -100% | 36.08% | 186,238 | 67,191 |
Germany | -99% | 89.45% | 182,452 | 163,200 |
Greece | -32% | 47.28% | 2,906 | 1,374 |
Hong Kong | -10% | 97.00% | 1,067 | 1,035 |
Hungary | -49% | 52.31% | 3,816 | 1,996 |
India | -65% | 42.88% | 165,386 | 70,920 |
Indonesia | -77% | 25.43% | 24,538 | 6,240 |
Ireland | -79% | 88.92% | 24,841 | 22,089 |
Israel | -31% | 87.00% | 16,872 | 14,679 |
Italy | -52% | 64.99% | 231,732 | 150,604 |
Japan | -33% | 84.80% | 16,683 | 14,147 |
Malaysia | -53% | 80.86% | 7,629 | 6,169 |
Mexico | -69% | 69.70% | 78,023 | 54,383 |
Netherlands | -97% | 0.01% | 45,950 | 3 |
New Zealand | -21% | 98.01% | 1,504 | 1,474 |
Norway | -100% | 91.87% | 8,411 | 7,727 |
Philippines | -87% | 23.08% | 15,588 | 3,598 |
Poland | -36% | 46.27% | 22,825 | 10,560 |
Portugal | -65% | 58.99% | 31,596 | 18,637 |
Singapore | -105% | 55.02% | 33,249 | 18,294 |
South Africa | -74% | 52.44% | 27,403 | 14,370 |
South Korea | -4% | 91.15% | 11,344 | 10,340 |
Spain | -67% | 69.11% | 284,986 | 196,958 |
Sweden | -93% | 13.91% | 35,727 | 4,971 |
Switzerland | -101% | 91.90% | 30,796 | 28,300 |
Taiwan | 4% | 95.24% | 441 | 420 |
Thailand | -36% | 96.08% | 3,065 | 2,945 |
U.S. | -56% | 28.20% | 1,768,346 | 498,720 |
United Kingdom | -82% | 0.05% | 269,127 | 135 |
Vietnam | 15% | 85.02% | 327 | 278 |
Mobility data as of May 21, 2020 (Latest available). COVID-19 case data as of May 29, 2020.
In the main scatterplot visualization, we’ve taken things a step further, assigning these countries into four distinct quadrants:
1. High Mobility, High Recovery
High recovery rates are resulting in lifted restrictions for countries in this quadrant, and people are steadily returning to work.
New Zealand has earned praise for its early and effective pandemic response, allowing it to curtail the total number of cases. This has resulted in a 98% recovery rate, the highest of all countries. After almost 50 days of lockdown, the government is recommending a flexible four-day work week to boost the economy back up.
2. High Mobility, Low Recovery
Despite low COVID-19 related recoveries, mobility rates of countries in this quadrant remain higher than average. Some countries have loosened lockdown measures, while others did not have strict measures in place to begin with.
Brazil is an interesting case study to consider here. After deferring lockdown decisions to state and local levels, the country is now averaging the highest number of daily cases out of any country. On May 28th, for example, the country had 24,151 new cases and 1,067 new deaths.
3. Low Mobility, High Recovery
Countries in this quadrant are playing it safe, and holding off on reopening their economies until the population has fully recovered.
Italy, the once-epicenter for the crisis in Europe is understandably wary of cases rising back up to critical levels. As a result, it has opted to keep its activity to a minimum to try and boost the 65% recovery rate, even as it slowly emerges from over 10 weeks of lockdown.
4. Low Mobility, Low Recovery
Last but not least, people in these countries are cautiously remaining indoors as their governments continue to work on crisis response.
With a low 0.05% recovery rate, the United Kingdom has no immediate plans to reopen. A two-week lag time in reporting discharged patients from NHS services may also be contributing to this low number. Although new cases are leveling off, the country has the highest coronavirus-caused death toll across Europe.
The U.S. also sits in this quadrant with over 1.7 million cases and counting. Recently, some states have opted to ease restrictions on social and business activity, which could potentially result in case numbers climbing back up.
Over in Sweden, a controversial herd immunity strategy meant that the country continued business as usual amid the rest of Europe’s heightened regulations. Sweden’s COVID-19 recovery rate sits at only 13.9%, and the country’s -93% mobility rate implies that people have been taking their own precautions.
COVID-19’s Impact on the Future
It’s important to note that a “second wave” of new cases could upend plans to reopen economies. As countries reckon with these competing risks of health and economic activity, there is no clear answer around the right path to take.
COVID-19 is a catalyst for an entirely different future, but interestingly, it’s one that has been in the works for a while.
Without being melodramatic, COVID-19 is like the last nail in the coffin of globalization…The 2008-2009 crisis gave globalization a big hit, as did Brexit, as did the U.S.-China trade war, but COVID is taking it to a new level.
—Carmen Reinhart, incoming Chief Economist for the World Bank
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