China now exports every six hours as much as it did in the whole of 1978.

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China's internet population has reached 404 million, up from 384 million at the end of 2009, and the number of people accessing the internet with mobile phones there has reached 233 million.

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More than 8 million visits were made to news websites every minute, on the night Barack Obama won the US presidential election. On the first day of the 2010 Football World Cup, there were 12 million visits per minute.

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In China over 5 million people graduate every year and in India about 3 million, respectively four times and three times the numbers a decade ago.

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In 2001, 28% of students who studied abroad did so at American universities. By 2008, that figure had shrunk to 21%, though the absolute number of globally mobile students grew by 50% over the period.

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75% of fast-food companies' revenues in Europe comes from people eating in the restaurant compared with half in America.

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The number of members of LinkedIn with the title vice-president grew 426% faster than the membership of the site as a whole in 2005-09.

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In 2009, Italians made only 66 non-cash transactions per person compared with about 170 in the euro zone.

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In Britain, the proportion of homes that receive multi-channel television has risen from 31% to 89% in the past 10 years.

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In 2008, America's net imports of oil and gas amounted to $416 billion or 60% of its budget deficit.

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In 2008, 87% of newspaper revenues in America came from advertising. In Japan, the proportion was 35%.

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Spending on DVDs in America fell from $20 billion in 2006 to $16 billion in 2009.

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At the turn of the 20th century, U.S. households spent about 2 percent of their income on transportation. That figure is now around 18 percent and rising.

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Union membership in America has fallen from a third of the work force in 1950 to just over a tenth today.

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China and India, with over a third of the world's population between them, have less than 10% of its fresh water.

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China and the US account for some 40% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.

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The number of MBAs awarded by American business schools swelled from 21,561 in 1969-70 to 150,211 in 2006-07.

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Sales of music in the form of digital files grew by 9.2% to exceed a quarter of total sales during 2009.

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In 2009, global box office revenues increased by 7.6%, but total revenue for the biggest Hollywood studios fell by 4.3%, due to the collapse of consumer spending on DVDs.

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Organised retail outlets like supermarkets, hypermarkets and department stores account for just 5% of India's $450 billion retail market.

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