3 charts for you today:
End of an era
This week IKEA announced some big news. The world-famous IKEA catalogue, which at one point was the most printed book in the world, is to be discontinued after 70 years. At its peak, IKEA was printing more than 200 million catalogues every single year.
The days of flicking through a huge book, only to buy another Billy bookcase, might have lasted a few more years if 2020 had been normal. But, 2020 accelerates everything, and so just 6 years after running this ad, the IKEA catalogue will be no more.
IKEA's results for the 12 months up to the end of August reveal a surprisingly resilient business. 4 billion website visits translated into online retail sales that were up 45% for the year. That remarkable growth helped to offset the physical business, where 75% of IKEA stores were closed for seven weeks on average, for a group total of almost €40bn of sales.
Recession proof?
A recession proof business, one that delivers even when the rest of the global economy is in meltdown, is a rare thing. IKEA might just be one. With e-commerce picking up most of the slack, IKEA's total retail sales only ended up falling 4% for the year.
Even the 2008/09 recession is pretty much impossible to find straight away on this chart. In IKEA's case they weathered that downturn easily, actually managing to grow their revenues very slightly. Recession or pandemic, IKEA seems to do fine. They probably won't miss that catalogue too much.
This year the number of medical school applicants in the US has jumped 18%, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
The Fauci effect?
Some school admissions officers are attributing the surge in applicants to become a doctor to Anthony Fauci, the cool, calm and collected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There may be some truth to that idea, but the reality is probably a little more boring — simply that public health has been at the forefront of people's minds a lot more than usual this year. Indeed, Geoffrey Young, the AAMC senior director who first reported the news on NPR, said that it's a similar situation to 2001, when "after [Sept. 11], there was a huge increase in the number of men and women that were entering into the military".
For the aspiring doctors... this is probably not great news. 18% more applicants in a field that's already super competitive doesn't feel great, particularly when each applicant makes on average 17 applications. Good luck to them all.
A Gallup survey of more than 1000 American adults, published by Axios, reveals just how much of an impact this year has had on mental health. The proportion of people rating their mental health as "excellent" has fallen by almost 10% across the board.
Overall we were quite surprised by how uniform the impact appears to have been across age groups, race and income. Certain groups of people may have been doing better before COVID-19, but no group has escaped its impact on mental health.
Money... helps
Money may not buy "happiness", but it certainly seems to help your mental health through a pandemic. For household incomes above $100k, the pandemic has worsened mental health, but 45% of that high earner group still rated their mental health as excellent, significantly ahead of the 31% whose households earned between $40k and $99k, and way ahead of the 27% in the lowest earning bracket (<$40k).
Young people... are struggling
The poll found that just 28% of young adults (aged 18-29) rated their mental health as excellent, the lowest of the 4 age groups polled.
1) Bob Dylan has sold his entire music collection of ~600 songs to Universal Music Group for a reported sum of around $300m.
2) Apple has unveiled its latest set of headphones, called the AirPods Max, which are coming in at a wallet-crushing $549.
3) Mount Everest is a little bit taller than we thought it was. A new collaborative survey between Nepal and China has put its peak at 29,031.69 feet above sea level — 2 feet higher than previously thought.
4) Quick Base apps have been delivered 3-4x quicker than with traditional development. Try low-code building today with Quick Base.**
5) Tesla is cashing in on its sky-high share price once again, announcing a $5 billion capital raise.
6) This week Margaret Keenan, who is about to turn 91, became the first person to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine outside of a clinical trial. Cornelius Mendez on Twitter is asking the big question on everyone's mind.
