Pulse

• CONSUMERS SPENT $3.01 trillion with the top 250 retailers in the world between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006, up 6%

• CONSUMER SPENDING around the globe reached an impressive $90,000 per second, or $5.4 million per minute, at the world's 250 biggest retailers

• WAL-MART , with $312 billion in retail sales, accounted for more than 10% of the total sales

• LATIN AMERICAN RETAILERS were the most profitable, with net income averaging 4.4% of sales, while Asia Pacific retailers were the least profitable at 2.9% on average

• THE BIGGEST SECTOR by sales volume in the top 250 is the FMCG group (such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Metro), with a total of 133 companies

• ON AVERAGE FMCGs in the top 250 operate in the fewest number of countries compared to other sectors. • SPECIALTY STORES are displacing food retailers, whose share shrunk from 61% in 1995 to 58% in 2007 Source: Deloitte's The Global Powers of Retailing 2007 report