I am interested in the number of companies in the US, both public and
private, that fall into various size buckets listed below. I would
like to know the number of companies in each bucket, the total annual
revenue that each bucket represents, and (most important) the annual
revenue growth for each bucket for the most recent available year -
hopefully 2003-2004. The buckets are:
Small - Less than $50 million in revenue per year
Medium - $50 to $500 million in revenue per year
Large - $500 million to $5 billion in revenue per year
Very large - More than $5 billion in revenue per year
The deadline for this question is midnight EST, August 15.
Thanks. |
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
15 Aug 2005 14:09 PDT
Hello there.
I've begun working on your question, and hope to have an answer in
time for your deadline. But because you're in such a hurry, I wanted
to ask for feedback on one critical area.
In my experience, the boundaries between "buckets" rarely fall on
exactly the amounts you asked about. Statistics may be available, but
the boundaries may be $100 million to $500 million, rather than the
$50-500 that you wpecified.
The available data may closely match your boundaries. Then again, it may not.
Is that going to be a problem? If so, please let me know ASAP.
Otherwise, I'll be working on the presumption that there's some
flexibilitiy built in to your request.
pafalafa-ga
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
15 Aug 2005 14:32 PDT
Also, the most recent data available covers 2002 -- there has not been
an updated economic census covering later years.
Will 2002 data work for you?
pafalafa-ga
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Clarification of Question by
businessresearcher-ga
on
15 Aug 2005 17:23 PDT
2002 data is fine. As far as the buckets are concerned, it's OK as
long as there is enough granularity in the buckets so that I can
figure out a rough way to map the buckets you provide to the buckets I
need (i.e. it's OK if it's broken up into lots of buckets and one of
my cutoffs falls in between what you provide, but it's not OK if the
data is only broken up into two or three buckets).
Let me know if that doesn't answer your questions.
Thanks.
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
15 Aug 2005 18:35 PDT
Ahhh...sorry.
The Census data, as it turns out, has lots of buckets for small and
mid size companies, but their data tops out at annual revenue of $100
million, so the really big and mega-big companies get folded into this
category, I'm afraid.
I could make use of Fortune 500/1,000 lists and similar lists from
Business Week, etc to tease out information on the largest firms. But
I'm afraid that would still leave a gap in the buckets.
It would also entail a lot of data manipulation...And time's a-runnin' out.
Sorry.
paf
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Request for Question Clarification by
vercingatorix-ga
on
17 Aug 2005 05:22 PDT
I just read your question, and it appears the deadline is over.
However, if you're still interested, I can get you the information you
want for public companies, broken down just as you desire according to
size, with data from 2004. I cannot get you such data for private
companies, but in my experience, public companies are a reasonable
proxy for the U.S. economy, and the data available on them is far more
precise.
V
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Clarification of Question by
businessresearcher-ga
on
17 Aug 2005 06:20 PDT
Although the deadline passed, I would still be interested in the
answer. The problem with only using public companies is that the vast
majority of the millions of small businesses in the US are not public.
I might be willing to pay for accurate, recent data on public
companies, but I would have to lower the amount.
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Request for Question Clarification by
vercingatorix-ga
on
17 Aug 2005 08:29 PDT
I have done a number of research projects like this one, and in my
experience, the aggregate growth numbers for public and private
companies are not all that different, particularly for companies with
more than $50 million in revenue per year. In any case, I don't
believe you can get the kind of data you require in the detailed
buckets you require, if you want private companies. The only reliable
source I can find for such information is the Economic Census, and
according to the Census Bureau, the series with number of businesses
as measured by revenue will not be out until late this year or early
next year. And annual growth numbers would not be available in any
case because the economic census is taken only every five years.
However ...
I can extrapolate the numbers you need. Here is what I propose:
I have solid data from 2001 on firm counts based on the number of
employees. I can derive average sales/employee for U.S. companies
using data from public company and use that average to estimate
business counts and total revenue for size categories. Then I can
calculate sales-growth rates for public companies and use that as a
proxy for total U.S. business sales growth.
If this would be acceptable, let me know, and I'll answer your question.
V
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Clarification of Question by
businessresearcher-ga
on
17 Aug 2005 09:55 PDT
That's OK, I think I'll pass. Thanks for the effort though.
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Request for Question Clarification by
vercingatorix-ga
on
17 Aug 2005 11:03 PDT
Too bad. I was looking forward to crunching the numbers.
Let me know if you need anything else in the future. Government data
wasn't available this time, but perhaps we'll get lucky next time. I
enjoy this kind of research.
And if you'd like something just using data from public companies, I
can get that current as of 2004.
V
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