Space launches

First spacecraft/satellite launch in 1957. 

Fist spacewalk - 1965.

From Wikipedia: Spaceflight began in the 20th century following theoretical and practical breakthroughs by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert H. Goddard, and Hermann Oberth, each of whom published works proposing rockets as the means for spaceflight.[a] The first successful large-scale rocket programs were initiated in Nazi Germany by Wernher von Braun. The Soviet Union took the lead in the post-war Space Race, launching the first satellite,[1] the first animal,[2]: 155  the first human[3] and the first woman[4] into orbit. The United States landed the first men on the Moon in 1969. Through the late 20th century, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and China were also working on projects to reach space.

4 October 1957: The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting satellite in history.

1 October 1958: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is created in the US, replacing the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA). 

18 December 1958: The US launch SCORE, the world's first communications satellite. It captured world attention by broadcasting a pre-recorded Christmas message from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, becoming the first broadcast of a human voice from space. 

12 April 1961: The Soviet Union achieve a clear triumph in the space race. Aboard the Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin makes a single orbit around the Earth and becomes the first man to reach space. He remained in space for one hour and forty-eight minutes before landing in Saratov Oblast, west Russia. 

18 March 1965: Alexei Leonov leaves his spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, in a specialized spacesuit and conducts a twelve-minute spacewalk, the first of its kind. 

19 April 1971: The USSR launches the first space station. Parts of this spacecraft will become core segments of the International Space Station (ISS) almost thirty years later in November 2000. 

Modern day:

For example, a publicly listed company Firefly

"Our Company is a market leading space and defense technology company providing comprehensive mission solutions to national security, government, and commercial customers with an established track record of success. Our mission is to enable responsive and reliable launch, transit, and operations in space for our national security and commercial customers across the globe. Backed by our world-class team and proven technology, we have designed, developed, and deployed our class leading launch vehicles and dynamic spacecraft solutions, to support critical customer missions across the space domain. As a leader of responsive mission solutions and the only commercial company to achieve a fully successful Moon landing, we are a partner of choice for national security, government, and commercial customers for their critical space missions. As a U.S.-based company, our purpose-built family of products aligns with the ongoing paradigm shift in government missions and procurement processes, where speed, dependability, efficiency, and economics drive customer decision-making."

Revenue $60 million. R&D 149 million.

Rocket Lab

Electron (part of RocketLab) - 20 launches expoected in 2025

Abbott Laboratories

• Market Cap of USD 223 billion (50th largest globally), one of the larger medical devices company.
• Revenue of ~USD 42 billion (2024) - ,mainly diagnostic, nutritional and medical devices. Some pharma too.
• Although revenue declined from Covid times, the other streams have gone up. (Rapid Diagnostics declined)
• A broad base of revenue categories and countries
• Established Pharma Products in emerging markets, none in US USD 5 billion 
• Nutritional Products USD 8.4 billion (Adult and Pediatric)
• Diagnostic Products USD 9.341 billion
• Products sold by the Diagnostics segment include various types of diagnostic tests to detect COVID-19. Abbott’s COVID-19 testing-related sales totaled approximately $747 million in 2024, $1.6 billion in 2023 and $8.4 billion in 2022.
• Medical Devices 18.98 billion
• Diabetes care is largest category
• Abbott Lab is a leading player in this segment,
• Diabetes Care is a USD 65 billion
• Abbott’s products are generally sold directly to retailers, wholesalers, distributors, hospitals, health care facilities, laboratories, physicians’ offices and government agencies throughout the world. Abbott has four reportable segments: Established Pharmaceutical Products, Diagnostic Products, Nutritional Products, and Medical Devices.
• 114000 employees
• At its height, covid testing market was $46 billion. Now less.
• Roche, Abbott, Hologic, Becton Dickinson and co, DiaSorin, and bioMerieux dominate the COVID-19 test market, covering more than 50% by value.
• The global covid-19 diagnostics market size was estimated at USD 33.03 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 6.25 billion by 2030, declining at a CAGR of -21.2% from 2024 to 2030. 

Anheuser‑Busch InBev (AB InBev)

• One of the 500 FT Wilshire companies
• Topmost and only from Belgium
• Market Cap of USD 97 billion
• Employs 144000 people across 50 countries 
• Revenue of USD 59.380 billion. EBITDA of ~20 billion, 
• North Am 15% vol, 25% rev (Premium)
• Middle Am 26% vol, 29% rev (Premium)
• South Am 28% vol, 21% rev 
• EMEA 16% vol, 15% rev
• APAC 15% vol, 10% rev
• 
  
• 584 million hecto litres volume (top 40 account for 1.6 billion hectolitres)
• "Each year, more than 2 billion consumers around the world choose our beers." 
• The largest beer company in the world (Brands include Budweiser, Corona, 500 brands)
• Competitors-  Heineken has revenue of USD 33 billion, Carlsberg group ($10 billion), Molson Coors ($11 billion) (mainly North Am), Asahi Group ($18 billion)(Japan and Asia), China Resources Snow Breweries Co., Ltd.(top 4, USD 19 billion)
• Apparently, top 4 companies account for ~60% of the beer market (??? check) -
• maybe in volume (top 4 of top 40) as per one report.
• in value terms these add up to ~120 billion out of 800 billion+ market
• 
  
• Beer market
• The market is interesting. Expanding in value terms though volume may not as much
• The total size of the market is $840 billion (est)
• Czech Republic largest per capita beer consumption. China largest market in world by total volume. (22%), followed by US (10.6%). Brazil is third largest.
• Total beer bottles 303 billion annual volume (633 ml bottles)
• The combined output of the world’s “top 40” brewing groups in 2024 was about 1,639 mhl.
• Total beer world consumption ~192billion kilolitres or 1,920 mhl
• Top 4 brewers - 1100-1200 mhl.
• AB InBev (2024): ~575.7 mhl
• Heineken (2024): ~242.6 mhl
• Estimating China Resources Snow (CRB): ~170–180 mhl
• Carlsberg Group: ~120 mhl 
• GM of 55.25% (up from 53.87%)
• EBITDA margin 25.87%
• 0.65% sales growth
• Negative Working Capital cycle (68 days inventory, 32 days debtors, 320 days creditors)
• Cash conversion cycle is negative (high numbe of days negative)
• Amazon has a negative CCC
• Some mega retail companies have similar
• Two interesting aspects in the company - BEES and DTC
• We have transformed our route to market, enabled by BEES, a global business-to-business digital commerce platform created by AB InBev. In 2024, BEES transacted approximately 49 billion USD of gross merchandise value (GMV) in 28 countries.
• In 2024, our omnichannel Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) ecosystem, including our digital brands Ze Delivery, Tada Delivery and PerfectDraft, as well as approximately 12,000 physical retail locations such as Modelorama in Mexico, generated 1.4 billion USD in revenue. Across 21 markets, our digital DTC business delivered approximately 76 million e-commerce orders, growing 10% from 2023, and generated approximately 560 million USD in revenue

Exploring the world through top companies

One of the sources or ways of exploring the world is to explore the top 500 companies. FT Wilshire makes a list. Here's a snapshot. 

What I really appreciate is the value of market cap provided in the newspaper itself rather than stopping at P/E ratio. Short of revenue, this is a good enough metric for understanding and appreciating the relative size of the companies. 

A long exploration journey. Glad we have covered Australia so far.

And here's a deepdive of the list I came across.

As of September 2025:

ASX #11 Telstra Group

1. Market Cap of AUD 55 billion (11th largest ASX co, largest telecom group on ASX).
2. Revenue of AUD 23 billion, EBITDA of 8.6 billion, PAT of 2.3 billion
1. The largest telecom company in the world by revenue is China Mobile, which reported a revenue of $133.6 billion in 2024
2. The global telecom sector's total service revenue was $1.14 trillion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.9% through 2028, reaching approximately $1.3 trillion. This growth is driven by rising mobile data, 5G subscriptions, and IoT services, though the industry faces challenges like price pressures and increasing cost
3.