Our Collections: Spotlight on Library Resources

Spotlight On: Statista

Do you know which cities in the world have the largest number of skyscrapers? Have you ever wondered which countries drive on the right and left hand side of the road, or how much chocolate is eaten in different parts of the world?

You can find out the answers to these and many other questions on Statista….

Statista, which you can find through the library’s A-Z database list, is a comprehensive statistics platform with access to more than 1.5 million statistics and datasets on 80,000 topics and 170 international industries. It is a great resource if you need statistics to enhance an assignment or are looking for infographics to liven up a presentation.

The most viewed statistics on the platform in May 2023 give a snapshot of the range of topics Statista covers. They include biggest global companies by market value, countries with the lowest national debt, top selling artists worldwide, Instagram acounts with the most followers, tennis players with the most grand slam wins and finally The Economist’s Big Mac index.

Some examples of the infographics Statista produces can be seen at https://www.statista.com/chartoftheday/. The chart featured here illustrates the percentage of people in different countries who donated money to charity in 2023:

Where does Statista get its data from?

49% is Statista’s own data (from industry forecasts, consumer insights, market surveys etc), 16% comes from publicly accessible secondary sources and 35% is from data partnerships with market research institutes and the data suppliers of major industries. The source of the data is shown at the bottom of the data or infographic provided.

Reports and Insights

For Business students Statista also provides access to a bank of relevant studies and reports, including Companies and Products Reports, Consumer & Brand Reports and Industry Reports. Statista's Industry reports, for example, are intended to provide the facts needed to understand an industry; they present numerical data such as trends in turnover and revenue as well as highlighting industry strengths and weaknesses. The reports can be browsed from the top-level menu:

Market Insights are provided in key subject areas including Advertising and Media, the Digital Economy, Consumer Goods, Health and Technology. These can be used to dive deeper into specific topics, so for instance in Advertising & Media you can focus in on social media. The reports enable you to compare the market you’re investigating in different regions and to look at market share, reach, demographics, key players and key indicators.

Keyword searching

As well as exploring the topics defined by Statista you can also run a keyword search directly from the homepage:

The database will bring back results in all categories (statistics, market analytics, surveys, industry reports, infographics, dossiers, etc.). You can then refine your search using the selection criteria in the left-hand menu and scroll down to click ‘refresh’ to update your results.

You can also sort the results by relevance, publication date, or popularity using the drop-down menus at the top.

Downloading statistics

The statistics can be downloaded to use in presentations or reports in a variety of formats including XLS, PNG, PPT and PDF:

More library suggestions..

Receiving statistics updates via email

Citing statistics

Guidance on using statistics under the Creative Commons licence