Distribution channels of the American book industry: a play of digital technology.
Szenberg, Michael ; Ramrattan, Lall
I. Introduction
The classical economist, Alfred Marshall wrote that, "... the
booksellers get too large a share of the price of those books which
appeal to relatively small audiences ... Authors work: publishers
exercise judgment and take risks. But I cannot discover what booksellers
do for the extension of knowledge." (1) Marshall would not be
surprised at the rapid changes now taking place in the field of book
distribution. He might have reasoned that the advent of new technology
was wanting in order for booksellers to discover their proper place in
the industry. He would have lauded the market forces that brought new
entrants such as Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and Book-a-Million into
competition on the internet. The shifting structure of the American Book
Industry, which appears as quicksand, might not have alarmed Marshall as
"the forces of demand and supply have free play" when they are
subject to displacement. (2) Marshall would have witnessed that
booksellers mediate the "blade of a pair of scissors"
operating under market forces, and we eagerly await for the circumstance
that like two balls "against one another in a bowl" they would
come to rest as under the force of gravity. (3)
II. Today's Industry
Dominant themes in the changing structure-conduct-performance
paradigm are now visible at every turn and twist of the book industry.
Libraries are now heavily dependent on online sources of journals,
databases, and books. The traditional book
store is now in cyber space. Researchers now search databases and
download texts from their home rather than having to visit the library.
Booksellers have developed technologies that bring discounted books and
even best-sellers to avid readers. Amazon brought out the Kindle
E-reader, Apple followed with the iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, and
iBookstore, and, in 2010, Barnes and Nobles came out with the Nook.
Booksellers have largely purged their inventory system through the new
method of printing on demand. Institutions now make working papers
available at their web-site, and one can preview, publish, or download
many books easily and for free on the internet. Indeed, digital
technology has brought a bountiful harvest to readers not necessarily at
the expense of booksellers--thus a win-win situation.
The point of view of supply shock that accompanied digital
technology is best characterized by any hypothesis that tries to explain
the current state of every aspect of the book industry. The
economists' take on supply shock is that it unsettles the industry,
but it is on its way to a General Purpose Technologies level often
discussed in the endogenous growth literature. (4) Technology must
address many niches in demand. Some niches will be filled by old
technology, while others will be inadequately filled, and, as the
technology becomes general purpose in nature, new demand will arise. (5)
As production processes accommodate newer technology, book distribution
responds in a correspondingly newer way that is no longer akin to
concerns about super stores, warehouses, shelf spaces, and printed
books, but directed towards virtual space, Print on Demand (POD), and
e-book technologies. Companies have a large Research & Development
budget to keep this supply shock going. Amazon reports R&D
expenditures in "seller platforms, web services, digital
initiatives, and expansion of new and existing product categories, as
well as in technology infrastructure to enhance the customer experience,
improve ... process efficiencies and support ... infrastructure web
services." (6)
An example of the new R&D competition among sellers is present
in attempts of sellers to block entry by their e-book reader. At first,
the joint supply of E-books and E-readers created a complementary
relation in supply. One's E-book can only be downloaded on ones
E-reader. But later, with the advent of Google E-books, which shattered
that complement model, allowed books to be read from almost all
electronic devices through its digital cloud technology. Sellers'
competition became highly differentiated as they tried to improve the
quality of their E-readers. The figure below shows how that
technological competition translated into price competition. It locates
prices as varying between home and abroad, and by grey vs. color
technology.
Technological change has cast a loaded dice against the traditional
sources of economies of scale in the industry. In the traditional book
industry, the high cost of typesetting was spread over the number of
runs--absent in small batches and present in large batches. As far back
as 1992, Joseph Dionne, chairman and CEO of McGrawHill wrote that with
the advent of digital technology "... a 2,000-book run can be
followed by a 50-book run, which can then be followed by 450-book run,
without stopping."7 By 2000, the technology was well advanced, and
the marginal cost of producing an additional book was pushed towards
zero. Examining the ratio of Average to Marginal cost [AC(q)/MC(q)]
hypothesis for recent years for which data is available; we notice that
AC(q) was consistently falling for operating, personnel, material, and
service costs. Conversely, MC(q) identifies that a Stage I phase of
production is associated with increasing marginal returns.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Ordinarily, dynamic changes that are present in the book industry
would require us to examine competition and cooperation in light of
concentration, pricing policies, mergers, unit cost structure, and
profit levels. One new phenomenon is that large chains can now easily
cooperate with small sellers to expand their market share by allowing
many independent sellers to access their websites. To do a breadth and
depth study of the evolving market structure of the industry, one should
initiate the study with a snapshot of the business at a point in time.
The industry's profile for 2002 places the total number of firms in
the industry at 3,242. Although 2002 is not so long ago, that year is in
the milieu of dramatic changes for book sellers. For instance, as of
2008, Barnes and Noble had 778 bookstores, a decline from 1,786, and
Borders Group, now extinct, had 1,018 bookstores, a decline from 2,140
in 1996. Some other reference points for 2002 reveal that the value of
books produced was $25 billion, new titles or editions 144,500, and
employment totaled 83,400 jobs.
III. Analyses and Findings
In order to penetrate the depth of changes in the book industry, we
investigate two long-standing and renowned hypotheses in the industrial
organization literature. The idea is not to superimpose these findings
on the modern book industry, but to see if the true structural paradigm
has shifted, and by what steps it has varied from the traditional
looking-glass view. The hypotheses are due to the works of Joe Bain and
George Stigler who were largely responsible for laying the foundation of
modern industrial economics that has come a long way from Alfred
Marshall's views on the subject. Of course, those authors were
unaware of the nature of the new shape of the industry following the
design of new high technology, but we may presume that the tools that
were intended to be used were emblematic of sound economic procedures.
The two hypotheses we investigate are:
Hypothesis I, (Bain): Concentration encourages cooperation among
firms, creating potential for higher profit levels. Implication of
Bain's Hypothesis: Variation in concentration ratios explains
variation in sales.
Hypothesis II, (Stigler): Small firms recognize and reward
workers' ability more than large firms. Corollary: If small
firms' profits are adjusted for these wage advantages, then there
will be no correlation between profits and concentration.
Bain's hypothesis is permeated with the problem of
concentration. While Stigler's hypothesis represents an inversion,
primarily as a way to explain competition. We have merged the two
hypotheses into one system of equations. Such a model can be addressed
with a specification that links concentration ratio to profits or sales.
In turn, concentration can be made dependent on mergers and price-cost
margins, the two best variables among a priori explanatory variables one
can find in the literature. We can now write a system of regression
equations of the following design for the purpose of investigating the
above hypotheses, where the variables are sales, concentration, mergers
and price-cost margin, and the constants to be estimated are a, b, c, d
and e.
log(Sales) = a + b log([Concentration.sub.C4]) Eq.1
log([Concentration.sub.c4]) = c + d log(Mergers) + e log (p - c/p)
Eq.2
We estimated the system of equations recursively, making
corrections for the seemingly unrelated residuals in the two equations.
Sales data is more readily available and surrogates are used for
profits. The first specification therefore, makes sales data from the
Book Industry Sales Trend (BISG) dependent on concentration data from
the Census. The second specification we make is that the concentration
ratios should be dependent on some barriers of entry variables. Stigler
has pointed out that "there are no large American companies that
have not grown somewhat by merger." (8) In explaining
concentration, we also include the price-cost margin variable, because
as Stigler said, "... firm size is still governed by economies of
scale (height and slope of cost curves) and demand." (9)
We estimated the recursive system twice to reflect the definitions
of the price-cost margin variable in Eq.2. At one time we used the
estimate from an earlier study where we estimated the elasticity of
demand for nine book categories, from which we computed the market power
based on the Lemer index. The second time we estimated the system using
a definition of price-cost margins to reflect concerns that small firms
tend to pay their employees or themselves a high salary, which
translated to a lower profit rate. The second measure of the price-cost
margin is made on data gathered on the prices for hardcovers only, for
the expression (Price-Payroll costs)/Price. The same cost price data is
also available for material costs, which we collected as an alternative
to the wage-cost hypothesis. The results are in Table 1 below:
Table 1 shows that the estimates are significant except for the
payroll price-cost margin. The responsiveness of sales to the four
firms' concentration ratio (CR4) for just the Bain hypothesis
(Eq.1, Eq. 1A, and Eq1B) ranges from 2.48 to 2.78, which is substantial.
One implication for Bain's hypothesis is that by varying the
concentration, the payoff in terms of sales revenue is at a higher
level. However, this concentration level increase is supported by the
second equation that regresses concentration ratios on merger and market
power indices.
Equation 2, 2A and 2B in Table 1 show significant responses to the
number of mergers. The responses vary from 0.18 to 1.1, and are all
significant. For Eq.2, a measure of market power using the Lemer index
and total costs indicate that the higher the market power the greater
the concentration, and by recursion, the higher the sales revenue is. An
attempt to split the cost data into material and payroll cost is not
progressive. First, data is only available to compute those margins only
for hardcover prices. Second, the sample size is greatly reduced. This
attempt turned out to be unsatisfactory for Stigler's hypothesis
that small firms recognize and reward ability better than large firms.
Our main findings can be abstracted for Table 1 and written in equation
form as follows:
log (Sales) = -5.68 + 2.481og([Concentration.sub.c4])
log([Concentration.sub.c4]) = -22.13 + 1.1 log (Mergers) -18.631og
(p - c/p)
For those who wonder whether the story can be told without
statistical hypotheses, we present an alternative view of the above
hypotheses by looking at the actual distribution of the industry data.
Table 2 below shows that the four firm concentration has been increasing
steadily in the latter years, correlating well with the number of
mergers that were taking place.
Table 3 indicates that that the U.S. book industry has been
contracting in size since 1992, when measured by the number of
establishments, from 12,887 in 1992, to 10,860 in 2002. This decline is
despite of the fact that establishments with categories 15-19, 20-49,
50-99 and 100+ categories, were expanding. On average, the losses of
establishments with fewer employees are still more than the gain in
establishments with larger numbers of employees. This can be best
explained by the economies of scale within the retail book industry.
This makes sense due to the higher possible gross margin when a wider
range of selection is available within the establishment. If
establishments are in fact expanding, their selection range, observing a
trend in higher concentration of establishments with more employees
makes sense.
When subcategories are observed in operated establishments, there
is a slight trend of the industry to move from general stores to college
and specialty stores. As Table 4 below shows, the general store category
still comprises the majority of establishments. The only subcategory
that is growing in the actual number of establishments is college
bookstores. The number of specialty stores declined slightly and the
number of general bookstores declined to 5,526 in 2002 from 6,778 in
1997. This could be due to a possible higher profit margin in the
college market, or possibly a rise in the number of colleges, especially
in the two year trade school, and online degree program categories.
The growth in College bookstores, decline in General bookstores,
and a slight decline in Specialty stores marks an interesting
development. There is a trend for General and Specialty stores to shift
the concentration of employees from smaller establishments to larger
ones. Within the College stores, there is little change in realignment
in the size of the establishments. For the General and Specialty
bookstores, the loss in sales by the smaller class sizes is exceeded by
the gain in sales in the largest class sizes. For the College
bookstores, all classes gain sales with the exception of stores which
engage one employee.
Table 5 shows that the growth in sales originates from larger
firms, whose increase in sales offsets the decline in sales from smaller
firms. The '1,000 employees or more' category with eight
firms, accounted for 70% of all sales from firms operating in 2002.
Several of the classes with fewer than 1,000 employees have experienced
declines in the number of firms and sales. The conclusion that we derive
is that the industry is undergoing a marked transformation due to sharp
technological changes pervading the Industry.
IV. Discussion
The retail book industry as a whole, when measured by number of
firms, has been declining from 1992 to 2002, exhibiting great similarity
with the declining pattern expressed by the brick-and-mortar aspect of
the industry. When the size of the firm is determined by the quantity of
employees, a decrease, or approximately no change, has been observed in
every category from 1992 to 2002, with the exception of 100-249
employees, and, to a lesser degree, the 1000 employee and greater
category. This leads to the conclusion that the number of large size
firms (250 employees and larger) are having trouble growing, possibly
due to large barriers to entry and tough competition.
When subcategory data is used, all three subdivisions of the book
industry show a decline of firms. In the College stores group, firms are
declining, but establishments are rising. This signifies that the
concentration of college book stores is rising. Fewer firms have more
establishments. The concentration of the industry within the three
subdivisions from 1997 to 2002 is constant. There is no trend for any
subgroup to get larger or smaller. In 2002, General stores made up 58%
of the firm size. General stores also accounted for about the same
percent of establishments. General stores have a firm-to-establishment
ratio of about 1:1.6. This suggests low concentration of many firms with
a few stores each. Specialty stores in 2002 had about the same
concentration ratio of about 1.5 Specialty establishments for every
Specialty firm. The College group, however, is only 7% of firms, but
accounts for 18% of all establishments. The ratio of establishments to
firms in this group is nearly 1:5. This suggests relatively high
concentration of a few firms with many establishments.
The distribution of employees in firms is very similar between
General stores and Specialty stores, with no distinct trend toward
becoming more concentrated in lower size firms or larger size firms over
time. The overwhelming majority of firms in these two categories are
made up of smaller firms, consisting of no more than 19 employees.
College stores do show a trend from 1997 to 2002 to become more
concentrated in larger size firms. Also, college stores are concentrated
to a lesser degree in smaller size firms, however; small firms still
make up the majority of firms.
When sales data is broken down into subcategories, analyzed by
employee size of firms and adjusted for inflation, for comparable data,
there is a downward trend in every size category. Sales are growing in
the industry, but detailed data is not made available for larger groups
as mentioned above. Since all observable data for sales by employment
size of firms in each subcategory are falling, it is reasonable to
assume the sales growth observed in the industry and all subcategories
is coming from large firms, whose increase in sales offsets the decline
in sales from smaller firms.
The 1000+ category in 2002 which has only 8 firms, accounted for
$10,680,403,000 in sales during 2002, thus accounting for over 70% of
all sales from firms operating for the year. Large firms (250 employees
and up) account for less than 0.5% of all firms, but drive all of the
sales growth in the industry.
Despite the dominance in sales growth by the largest firms (defined
by employees) the firms with the largest numbers of establishments are
very low. Large firms (50 or more establishments) have not grown from
1992 to 2002. This could be due to the high barriers of entrance for
very large firms. It is much easier for a single unit firm or a
multiunit firm with few establishments to enter the market as opposed to
a very large firm with many establishments and employees. While the
single unit firms clearly dominate the industry, accounting for slightly
over 92% of all firms, both single unit and multiunit firms have been on
the decline. As a percentage of the entire industry, single units are
actually increasing their market share due to a declining rate, lower
than that of multiunit firms. Since 1992, single unit firms have
declined by 28.36% while multiunit firms have declined by just over 35%.
Since 1992, every category of multiunit firms (up to 24 establishments)
has fallen while the larger multiunit firms have remained stable. Large
multiunit firms (25 or more establishments) experienced slight growth
from 1992 to 1997, but in 2002, all large multiunit firm categories
contracted back to previous levels.
For all multiunit firms, sales have decreased for smaller firms and
have risen dramatically in the 100+ establishment category. Multiunit
firms dominate sales at almost 83% of all sales in 2002, up from 69.25%
in 1992. The largest size firms account for the overwhelming majority of
sales for the entire industry. However, there were only 11 firms with
over 50 establishments in 2002.
At the subcategory levels, the sales trend is similar for Specialty
and General stores as it is for total firms. Single unit firms are
losing sales and multiunit sales are rising. For College stores, the
trend is different. Single unit and multi unit firms are increasing
sales. When size of multiunit firms are observed, the trend is for all
three subcategories to lose sales in smaller firms, leading to the
conclusion that sales must be rising in the larger firms. The only
noticeable exception is the 5 to 9 establishment category of college
bookstores.
V. Conclusions
Traditional industrial organizations highlight many important
distribution characteristics for this case study. Merger and market
power do influence concentration, which in turn influences sales
revenue. The distribution channels for books have evolved from
bookstores, to super stores, to the Internet. Larger book stores seem to
have a dominant position in these activities through mergers and
incorporations, yet, this does not show up as high concentration for the
industry. On average for the industry, the concentration seems to be
held in check from cooperation with smaller independent firms for the
purpose of reaching customers in the suburbs or as independent suppliers
on the Internet.
The U.S. retail book industry as a whole has been contracting since
1992. Total firms have been declining and the greatest contraction is
seen in small employment categories (up to 19 employees). Mid size firms
(20 to 99 employees) have been stable. Large size firms (250 to 999
employees) have had a slight contraction and the 1,000+ size firms have
seen a slight increase. Despite the trend for smaller firms to
disappear, either exiting the market or becoming larger firms, small
firms still make up the overwhelming majority for all firms. This is
true for each of the three subcategories, General, Specialty and College
firms. The subcategory concentration for firms in 2002 is: General 58%,
Specialty 35% and College 7%. This was almost exactly the subcategory
mix of 1997. Sales in the subcategories have been mixed. General stores
sales are up 4%, Specialty stores are down 1.5% and College stores sales
are up about 30%. Almost the entire sales growth seen in the industry is
from College stores. Sales of specific sizes have a definite trend in
subcategories, smaller and midsize firms are losing sales and larger
firms are gaining sales. This is the trend of establishments as well,
larger establishments are gaining sales and smaller establishments are
losing sales. Establishments have a distinct trend to get larger, unlike
firm size. It appears that College book stores are experiencing the best
results; gamering higher sales and more establishments. Usually when a
size category is contracting, sales also contract and the opposite is
also true. The industry is highly concentrated with a mixture of small
size firms, small establishments and single unit firms. However, the
bulk of sales are concentrated within the largest firms and
establishments.
References
Amazon.com. 2007. 2007 Annual Report of Amazon .com Inc. Retrieved
from http://phx.corporate-ir
.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-reportsannual
Dennis, Everette E., Craig L. LaMay, and Edward C. Pease, 1997.
Publishing Books. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Gylafason, Thorvaldur, 2003. Principles of Economic Growth; New
York: Oxford University Press.
Helpman, Elhanan, 1998. General Purpose Technologies and Economic
Growth, edited. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marshall, Alfred, 1996. The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall:
1903-1924, 1996, Vol. 3, Edited by John K. Whitaker. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Marshall, Alfred, 1982 [1890]. Principles of Economics, Eighth
Edition. London: Macmillan Press.
Stigler, George J., 1968. The Organization of Industry. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Michael Szenberg, Distinguished Professor of Economics and
Business, Touro College, 1602 Ave. J, Brooklyn, NY 11230. Email:
michael.szenberg@touro.edu Phone: (718) 252-7800 x243
Lall Ramrattan, University of California at Berkeley Extension,
1995 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704. Email: lallram@netscape.net
This paper is derived from Professor Szenberg's John R.
Commons Award Lecture given at the American Economic Association's
annual conference in San Diego, CA, January 2013.
Notes
(1.) Marshall 1996, pp. 168-169.
(2.) Marshall 1890, p. 284.
(3.) Ibid., 1890, pp. 674-675.
(4.) Helpman 1998; Gylfason, 2003.
(5.) Helpman 1998, p. 33.
(6.) Annual Report 2007, p. 23.
(7.) Dennis et al., ed., 1997, p. 25.
(8.) Stigler 1968, p. 95.
(9.) Ibid., p. 69.
TABLE 1.
Sales on Concentration--SUR System Estimates: 1963 to 2007
Eq. 1 Eq. 2 Eq. 1A
Bain Bain-Lemer Bain 2
Constant -5.68 -22.13 -5.96
(1.92) * (15.9) *** (2.02) **
CR4 2.48 2.57
(2.59) *** (2.69) ***
Mergers 1.1
(22.14) ***
(P-C)/P 18.63
(Lemer) (17.30) ***
P-C/P
(Stigler)
[R.sup.2] 0.43 0.98 0.42
N. of Obs. 9 4 9
Eq.2A El. IB Eq. 2B.
Bain- Bain 3 Bain-
Material Wage Cost
Cost
Constant -6.64 2.45
(4.04) *** (2.29) *** (5.39) ***
CR4 2.78
(2.96) ***
Mergers 0.18 0.23
(2.48) *** (2.17) **
(P-C)/P
(Lemer)
P-C/P -40.9 1.78
(Stigler) (2.71) *** (0.56)
[R.sup.2] 0.88 0.42 0.64
N. of Obs. 5 9 5
*** = 99 percent level; ** = 95 percent level; and
* = 90 percent level of confidence.
TABLE 2.
Distribution Aspects of Book Publishing Number of
Establishments and Concentration Ratios
Number Value of
of Firms Shipment
Years (in millions)
1947 635 463,900
1954 804 655,200
1958 883 1,000,900
1963 936 1,534,600
1967 963 2,060,200
1972 1,120 2,856,900
1977 1.650 4,793,900
1982 2,007 7,740,000
1987 2,182 12,619
1992 2,504 16,753,100
1997 2,541 22,977,000
2002 3,242
Concentration Ratios
Number
Years C4s C8 C20 C50 of Megers
1947 18 29 48 0 0
1954 21 32 51 0 0
1958 16 29 48 69 0
1963 20 33 56 76 12
1967 20 32 57 77 23
1972 19 31 56 77 8
1977 17 30 57 74 22
1982 17 30 56 75 9
1987 24 38 62 78 26
1992 23 38 62 77 53
1997 58
2002 40.7 55.2 72.7 81 84
Source: U.S. Bureau of Census, "2006 Service Annual
Survey Informational Sector Services."
TABLE 3.
Number of Employees by Size Distribution
of Establishments
Size of establishment 1992 1997 2002
All establishments 12,887 12,363 10,860
Operated entire year 11,492 10,822 9,623
None 316 28 2
1 1,335 1,056 863
2 1,243 1,040 862
3 or 4 2,092 1,820 1,526
5 or 6 1,774 1,513 1,226
7 to 9 2,203 2,124 1,414
10 to 14 1,448 1,403 1,411
15 to 19 486 575 612
20 to 49 454 935 1,197
50 to 99 99 271 444
100 + 42 57 66
Source: Census Data: 1992, 1997, 2002
TABLE 4.
Distribution of General, Specialty and College Bookstores
Number of Establishment by Employees: 1997 vs. 2002
General
1997 2002 Pet. Chg.
All establishments 7,693 6,326 -17.77
Year round 6,778 5,526 -18.47
No employees 21 2 -90.48
1 employee 660 519 -21.36
2 employee 592 450 -23.99
3 or 4 employees 988 703 -28.85
5 or 6 employees 898 714 -20.49
7 to 9 employees 1,481 822 -44.5
10 to 14 employees 915 761 -16.83
15 to 19 employees 334 307 -8.08
20 to 49 employees 654 833 27.37
50 to 99 employees 212 382 80.19
100 employees or more 23 33 43.48
Not operated for
the entire year 915 800 -12.57
Specialty
1997 2,002 Pet. Chg.
All establishments 2,980 2,695 -9.65
Year round 2,529 2,402 -5.02
No employees 7 -- --
1 employee 323 281 -13
2 employee 308 258 -16.23
3 or 4 employees 559 466 -16.64
5 or 6 employees 406 277 -31.77
7 to 9 employees 409 340 -16.87
10 to 14 employees 285 412 44.56
15 to 19 employees 119 191 60.5
20 to 49 employees 104 168 61.54
50 to 99 employees 6 8 33.33
100 employees or more 3 1 -66.67
Not operated for
the entire year 451 293 -35.03
College
1997 2002 Pet. Chg.
All establishments 1,690 1,839 8.82
Year round 1,515 1,695 11.88
No employees -- --
1 employee 73 63 -13.7
2 employee 140 154 10
3 or 4 employees 273 357 30.77
5 or 6 employees 209 235 12.44
7 to 9 employees 234 252 7.69
10 to 14 employees 203 238 17.24
15 to 19 employees 122 114 -6.56
20 to 49 employees 177 196 110.73
50 to 99 employees 53 54 1.89
100 employees or more 31 32 3.23
Not operated for
the entire year 175 144 -17.71
Sources: Census Data: 1997, 2002.
TABLE 5.
Firms and Sales Distribution by Employees: 1992, 1997, 2002
Firms
1992 1997 2002
By employees:
less than 5 3,860 2,886 2,312
5 to 9 1,613 1,471 1,146
10 to 19 701 741 700
20 to 49 307 311 311
50 to 99 84 96 77
100 to 249 43 57 51
250 to 499 15 11 8
500 to 999 6 2 3
1000 employees 4 11 8
or more
Pet. Chg.
1992-97 1992-02 1997-02
By employees:
less than 5 -25.23 -40.10 -19.89
5 to 9 -8.80 -28.95 -22.09
10 to 19 5.71 -0.14 -5.53
20 to 49 1.30 1.30 0.00
50 to 99 14.29 -8.33 -19.79
100 to 249 32.56 18.60 -10.53
250 to 499 -26.67 -46.67 -27.27
500 to 999 -66.67 -50.00 50.00
1000 employees 175.00 100.00 -27.27
or more
Sales ('000)
1992 1997 2002
By employees:
less than 5 727,202 594,266 536,655
5 to 9 699,204 694,959 587,831
10 to 19 647,903 710,979 750,050
20 to 49 718,053 740,018 755,241
50 to 99 519,454 643,289 513,401
100 to 249 456,133 -- --
250 to 499 433,227 358,037 292,819
500 to 999 362,982 -- --
1000 employees 3,306,717 7,672,510 10,680,403
or more
Pet. Chg.
1992-97 1992-02 1997-02
By employees:
less than 5 -18.28 -26.20 -9.69
5 to 9 -0.61 -15.93 -15.42
10 to 19 9.74 15.77 5.50
20 to 49 3.06 5.18 2.06
50 to 99 23.84 -1.17 -20.19
100 to 249 -- -- --
250 to 499 -17.36 -32.41 -18.22
500 to 999 0.00 0.00 0.00
1000 employees 132.03 222.99 39.20
or more
Sources: Census Data: 1992, 1997, 2002
