I am looking for a breakdown of US companies by revenue size to create a graph.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 24 Jun 2004 19:30 PDT

I've found data on the breakdown of business sizes according to the
number of employees, but not (yet) by revenue.

Would employee data be useful as an answer to your question?

pafalafa-ga

Actually, with a bit more searching, I was able to find the data
you're looking for.

The actual table with the numbers can be found in Table 732 of the
Statistical Abstract of the United States for 2003:


http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/03statab/business.pdf#page=3


I've extracted the relevant numbers below, for your convenience, but
please do look at the table itself, so that you can become more
familiar with the various sources, caveats, etc.

Before rating this answer, please let me know if anything is not
clear, or if you need additional information.  Just post a Request for
Clarification, and I'll be happy to assist you further.

Cheers.

pafalafa-ga

==========

No. 732. Number of Returns and Business Receipts by Size of Receipts:

Year 2000......1,000s of...

........................corporations.....p'ships......proprietorships

Total in group. . . . . .. .5,045..........2,058..........17,905

Under $25,000 2 . . . .  . .1,220..........1,105..........11,997
$25,000 to $49,999 . .  . . . 302............183...........2,247
$50,000 to $99,999 . . .. . . 477............187...........1,645
$100,000 to $499,999. .  . .1,515............353...........1,733
$500,000 to $999,999. .. . . .582.............92.............190
$1,000,000 or more . .  . . . 946............137..............92

==========

Just to be clear, a number in the table like [ 5,045 ] actually
represents 5,045,000 corporations in the US for the year 2000.

By the way, the data for the business breakout by numbers of employees
can be found in Table No. 744. Establishments, Employees? and Payroll
by Employment-Size Class: 1990 to 2001.

The tables in between 732 and 744 provide additional levels of detail
(such as breakout by industry sector) for the distribution of
companies by size.  Check them out!

paf



search strategy:  Used bookmarked link to the Statistical Abstracts.

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Request for Answer Clarification by aaskcg-ga on 25 Jun 2004 06:31 PDT

Are both the revenues and number of businesses in units of thousands
or just the number of businesses?

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Request for Answer Clarification by aaskcg-ga on 25 Jun 2004 06:36 PDT

I did check the table and it appears that the revenues are not in
units of thousands.  I am looking for more details on businesses with
revenues greater than $1,000,000 - for example number of businesses
between 0 to 20MM, 20MM to 50MM, 50MM to 150MM, 150MM to 300MM, 300MM
to 500MM, 500MM to 1B, >1B.

Thanks

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Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 25 Jun 2004 07:20 PDT

You want more detail...you got more detail!

Head to the reports page for the "Statistics of Income" site at the IRS:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00co05nr.xls


The link above will take you directly to Table 5:

2000, Corporation Income Tax Returns: Returns of Active Corporations

Table 5--Selected Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Tax Items, by
Sector, by Size of Business Receipts

The first entry in the table (Number of Returns) provides details of
how the 5,045,274 corporations in the country are broken out in terms
of size.

The million dollar and over categories include:

$1.0-2.5 million -- 487,533

$2.5-5.0........... 212,496

$5.0-10.0.......... 115,106

$10-50............. 104,524

0ver $50 million...  26,372

==========

I'm afraid the IRS data tops out at the $50 million mark.  

To get at information on America's largest companies, I would suggest
getting a copy of the Fortune 500 list, which includes both revenues
and profit information for the top 500 companies in the US.

I have the list in front of me, but I can't reproduce it due to
copyright restrictions.  However, the top 5 companies (on the 2004
list, based on 2003 earning) are:

Wal-Mart -- $259 billion in revenues / $9 billion profits

Exxon Mobil -- $213 billion / $21.5 billion

GM -- $196 billion / $3.8 billion

Ford -- $164 billion / $0.5 billion

GE -- $134 billion / $15 billion

You can find the Fortune 500 list at almost any library.  It is also
available online at:

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fortune500

although you have to subscribe to the magazine in order to access the
lists....subscriptions begin at $4.95 for six issues, so it may be
worth signing up for a short time in order to access their extensive
data lists (note that they offer lists for prior years as well, in
case you want to find the 2000 data to match the year of the IRS
data).

There is also a Fortune 1000 list here:

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fortune1000


Hope this is the information you needed.  But as always, if you would
like any additional information, just let me know, and I'll do my best
to help.

pafalafa-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by aaskcg-ga on 25 Jun 2004 07:34 PDT

Thanks - one more thing if you can find me anything on companies
between 50MM and 500MM, you'd be a star!

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Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 25 Jun 2004 08:00 PDT

I searched Hoover's Company Profiles (a commercially-available
databaseaccessible through Lexis-Nexis) for companies that met the
criteria:

--revenues between $50 million and $500 million

--based in the US

Hoover's identified 695 companies that meet these criteria,

Hope that helps.

paf

The answer was not exactly what I needed, but the researcher did a
good job of getting close with the available information.

aaskcg-ga,

Thanks so much for the kind words and very generous feedback.  Best of
luck with your project.

paf