Visualize the world's most used ecommerce apps, from Amazon to Shein and Temu.

See a visualization of the most popular e-commerce companies in America

Amazon’s app sees more users than the next four most popular e-commerce apps (like Temu, Walmart, and others) combined.

Listen to a podcast episode that explains how the Chinese discount e-commerce retailer Temu became one of the most downloaded apps in the US.

Temu mainly sells off-brand items, while Amazon offers brand names

A personal finance expert breaks down the key similarities between Temu and Amazon in a quick video so consumers can decide which is the better choice for their shopping needs.

Read a breakdown of WeChat, the central technology in Tencent's empire that boasts roughly 1.4 billion users and hosts e-commerce, payment, and messaging services all in one place.

Temu uses gamification techniques to encourage customers to shop on its app

Games include a spinning roulette wheel that offers coupon rewards, promises free delivery, and more. Some have said it’s tough to pull themselves out of the Temu ecosystem once they’re in it.

Amazon launched a Temu competitor called Haul in 2024

On Amazon's Temu competitor, which it named "Haul," users can get extremely low-priced items shipped to them from—you guessed it—China.

Top Ethereum dApps

Thousands of decentralized apps (dApps) run on Ethereum, including marketplaces, financial platforms, and social networks. Top apps include Uniswap, a decentralized exchange for buying and selling cryptocurrency, and OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs). New apps are built on Ethereum all the time, facilitating billions of dollars worth of transactions. Explore the biggest ones here.

Many of the manufacturers selling items on Temu also supply goods to Amazon

They also often make products for other stores, including Target and Walmart. However, unlike these competitors, Temu doesn’t own any of the products it sells.

Watch a timeline of Tencent—one of China's earliest tech giants—despite the company's low profile.

Temu was born out of a Chinese company that, at the time, was called Pinduoduo

Today, the company is called PDD Holdings, and owns both Temu and its very similar sister app in China, Pinduoduo.

Fast fashion companies such as Temu and Shein often took advantage of the de minimis exemption, a US tariff loophole that ended in 2025.

Explore internet usage data, including how humans consume 1.2 billion years of content yearly

About half this time consists of content from social media platforms, where the average user spends about 18.5 hours weekly. An estimated $3.66T was spent on consumer goods by online shoppers in 2025, though nonconsumer goods, such as flights and hotel stays, greatly increase this estimate.

After making its US debut in 2015, Shein's sales surged during the pandemic—in 2023, the fast fashion company was valued at roughly $66B.

The Paypal-owned Honey app and RetailMeNot are popular places consumers find digital coupons today

With digital coupons overtaking physical ones as the most commonly redeemed coupons, customers flock to these sites and apps for coupons and discount codes, often checking multiple of them before making an online purchase.

Chinese clothing retailer Shein accounts for about half of fast-fashion sales in America.

See a breakdown of every single video game Tencent has invested in.

Creating a digital alternative to the traditional Chinese 'red envelope' payments helped spur WeChat's financial services growth, and helped it become a 'superapp.'

Temu aired its first Super Bowl ads in 2023

The “Shop Like a Billionaire” ad ran twice during the game. Temu saw a roughly 45% surge in downloads and a 20% increase in daily active users the day it aired.

As of 2025, Wikipedia is one of the top 10 most-visited sites in the world

Alphabet Inc.'s Google search engine and YouTube received nearly 150 billion combined visits in November, followed by Facebook, ChatGPT, and Instagram, which each received over 5 billion visits during the same span. With 4.42 billion visits for the month, Wikipedia ranked just behind Reddit's 4.85 billion.

In 2018, Tencent's market capitalization hit $580B, surpassing Facebook (now Meta) for the first time.

Amazon is the most-loved brand among baby boomers

Macy's ranked at number five for the oldest generation alive today, whereas Gen Xers have Apple in their number one slot. This data visualization outlines the most-loved brands among baby boomers.

Temu works with individual sellers who list and promote their products on the platform

Temu not only takes a roughly 5% to 15% commission rate, but also earns the money its sellers pay to advertise their products on the Temu platform.

Temu was losing an average of $30 per order as of 2024

Some business experts have made the argument that Temu is more focused on rapidly gaining market share and growing its customer base than achieving profitability.

Amazon accounts for roughly 40% of all US online retail sales—a much larger piece of the pie than its competitor Walmart

Although Walmart is roughly 30 years older than Amazon, the e-commerce giant has a significant lead in online US retail sales: Walmart's share is roughly 7%. Season 33 of the podcast "Business Wars," hosted by David Brown, is all about one of the most intense rivalries in all of retail.

A timeline and visuals on TikTok's rapid growth

The app that would become TikTok is known as Douyin in China, and this article recounts its history, acquisition of rival Musical.ly, and rebranding ahead of its lightning growth. One visualization shows how quickly TikTok reached 1B users.

The next technology epoch is here

From ChatGPT to DALL-E, 2022 saw the mainstream emergence of artificial intelligence for consumer use. Here's how these platforms will disrupt today's five biggest tech companies—Apple, Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

Read an overview of Tencent's biggest business moments, from the 2011 WeChat launch to streaming deal with Universal Music Group.

The world's top streaming services (by subscriber count)

With almost 270 million paying users, Netflix is the dominant force in streaming entertainment. But after enjoying a first-mover advantage for years, competitors are beginning to catch up. Most notable is Amazon, which leverages its Prime subscriptions to bundle Prime Video, and has amassed an estimated 200 million users. See an updated tracker of the world's biggest platforms by audience.

See a data visualization of the East India Company's trade

This tool visualizes the East India Company’s trade from 1760 to 1834, letting you track shipments of tea, textiles, metals, and more. Users can sort by commodity, origin, destination, and date to see London’s vast imperial supply network that shaped the British Empire.

Here is a visualization of the creator economy as an ecosystem

From social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, to major advertisers paying influencers to promote their brands, to the consumers watching online content, quite a few engines have to keep firing to make the creator economy run smoothly.

See the world's largest fashion companies, from Nike to H&M, ranked by their CO2 emissions.

Walmart was the first traditional retailer to crack the $1T club

In early 2026, the company joined major tech companies Nvidia, Apple, and Meta (among others) as one of the rare firms with a market capitalization beyond $1T. See the latest top companies here.

The world's 50 most valuable private companies

While public companies typically have the highest valuations, private companies get close. This list breaks down the top 50 as of 2025, with SpaceX at the top with a value of $350B, followed by ByteDance. Over three-fifths of the list are located in the US, with eight in China.

What's the difference between QQ, WeChat, and Weixin?

Tencent owns QQ, Weixin, and WeChat—three separate apps serving different users. QQ launched in 1999 as a youth-focused messenger. Weixin (for China) and WeChat (international) are technically the same app, but split to comply with regional regulations, especially around data and payments.

Explore a visual timeline of fintech’s history and growth

From the debut of the world’s first ATM in 1967, to Apple Pay launching in 2014, financial technologies have come a very long way in a relatively short historical period. A colorful visual timeline highlights some of the most important milestones along the way.

Amazon expanded its business and diversified its offerings by acquiring companies

Amazon’s retail and cloud businesses have been key drivers of the company’s growth over the years, but they haven’t done all the work by themselves. Companies Amazon has acquired include the video doorbell maker Ring, the grocer Whole Foods, the streaming service Twitch, the shoe retailer Zappos, and the film studio MGM.

See the original websites for companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple

Explore archived images of homepages on websites dating all the way back to 1991.

A list of major companies that accept cryptocurrency as payment

Have a fistful of Bitcoin? SpendMeNot provides a fascinating infographic that shows which companies currently accept the cryptocurrency. If you want to know where you can engage in Bitcoin transactions, this extensive resource directs you to the right merchants. Food, jewelry, banks, travel services and more are all represented here.

Amazon has experienced relentless, if occasionally bumpy, growth since its founding

From its founding in 1994 to a slew of acquisitions and new products and services launched in the decades since then, Amazon has experienced relentless, if occasionally bumpy, growth. This timeline from The Verge lays out some of the major events in the company’s story, including its IPO, rollout of its lucrative cloud-computing division, and much more.

Google reveals the top searches of 2023

Google Search remains the world's most popular online search engine, and the tech behemoth reveals the most common searches from at the end of every year. See global as well as more local trends in most common searches for people, films, and more.

Amazon's largest profit engine is its cloud-computing platform Amazon Web Services, which generated over 60% of Amazon's total operating income in 2024.

Visualizing the world's $261T in investable assets

Nearly half of the world's portfolio of stocks and bonds originate in the US. Roughly 1% of all investable assets are in the form of cryptocurrency.

Visualize the world's top 20 billionaires in 2026

This data visualization shows the 20 wealthiest people in the world as of January 2026. Topping the list with a net worth of more than $713B is Elon Musk, trailed by Larry Page ($258B), Jeff Bezos ($251B), and Larry Ellison ($243B).

Understanding TikTok-owner ByteDance's business model

ByteDance has ridden TikTok's major success to become the world's most valuable startup. This deep dive showcases some of the company's smartest moves and tactics, and where it's headed next.

See a ranking of the world's most valuable brands

Evaluating a brand's value involves evaluating investments in marketing, the strength of the brand, and even the company's performance. Technology companies represent most of the global economy's brand value. As of 2026, Apple has the most valuable brand in the world at $608B.

See a breakdown of Tencent's revenue streams, which include fintech, advertising, games, and social.

From Ozempic to Wegovy, see the $58B weight loss drug market visualized in one chart.

Visualizing the world's wealth in 2019

The world has a net worth of $360T. The U.S. economy continues to dominate given its sheer size, Asia and Europe are not that far behind.

See a visual of the largest airlines in the US by market share.

Visualize tipping norms around the world with this map that reveals the US tips more service providers and leaves larger amounts than anywhere else globally.