Start me up

By L.S., D.H. and P.J.W.

EVEN Luddites know that the largest internet firms reside in America. The upcoming public offering of Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, will drive home the point that China is catching up fast. But what about the rest of the world? The latest numbers from World Startup Report, a market researcher, gives an answer. Of the 50 countries they examined, 30 have at least one internet company worth more than $1 billion. Firms outside America and China are still relatively small: Google’s market capitalisation, for instance, is bigger than the value of the top internet firms in all other 48 countries combined. And worryingly for Europe, of the top five countries with firms with the highest valuations, none is European—but three are Asian.

Roll over the interactive chart above to see the company and value. If all three datapoints are not visible, it is because one is shrouded by another (ie, America's Amazon obscures Facebook, since both are worth around $185 billion); clicking on the key at the top will remove datapoints.