Unit 4 - Tables & Graphs

Speedos Express Expensive Guranteed next day delivery Guranteed two day delivery Yes High Yes Expensive High Excellent
2. Describing Charts

2.1 Pie Charts Pie charts are usually used to illustrate proportions. See the following example:
The table shows that the competition in the beer market is quite intense because there are too many rivals in beer industry. The latest statistics show that Shanghai Suntory Beer dominates Shanghai beer market with its 40.7% of the whole market share while Budweiser from Wuhan comes next with its 22.3%, and Reeb with its 15.2% ranks the third. However, Qingdao is very close to Reeb, with its market share only 1.2% less than Reeb.
Table 3-1 Market Share of Sales Volumes in SH in 2006
Ranking Company Brand
Percent (%)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Shanghai Suntory Beer Suntory Budweiser Wuhan International Budweiser Shanghai Asia Pacific Brewery Reeb Qingdao Beer Qingdao Asahi Brewery Asahi Heineken Beer Heineken Shanghai Asia Pacific Brewery Tiger
Econ Deliveries Low 2-4 days 3-14 days No N/A Yes Moderate Moderate-high Good
Global Freighters High 2-3 days 2-8 days Yes Moderate Yes High Moderate Reasonably Good
The rest brands are Asahi, Heineken and Tiger with 2.8, 1.2 and 0.8 percents of market shares, respectively. Even if we add up their sales volume, their total market share is only 4.8%. It is still far behind the market shares of the first four brands.
Chart 3-1: Composition of the sectional distribution of FDI in China manufacturing fields by the end of 1995
Capital Intensive, 22.73%
Technology Intensive, 26.85%

3. Converting textual information into tables or graphs
1. Describing tablquently employed in describing business activities because of its conciseness and clarity. Price lists, catalogues, calendars and balance of sheets are some typical tables used in international business. One main group of tables carries numerical information. See tables 3-1 and 3-2:
Task 3: Interpret the unemployment rates of Colombia
In 1998, the unemployment rate of Colombia was 8.5%. It rose to 9.8% in 1999 but fell to 8.3% in 2000. the falling trend was sustained in 2001 and 2002 and it reached the 7.7% and 6.2% marks respectively. However, in 2003, it surged by 2.9% and reached 9.1%. In 2004, there was a dramatic fall and it hit an all-time low of 5.3%.
Task 4: Compare the unemployment rates of India and Colombia
2004 was the year that India had the highest unemployment rate of 16.5%, whereas in the same year, Colombia had the lowest unemployment rate of 5.3%. Colombia had the highest unemployment rate in 1999, when it hit 9.8%. However, it reached an all-time low of 5.3% in 2004.
Table 3-3 A Comparison of Services Offered by Econ Deliveries, Global Freighters and Speedy Couriers
Services Australian Rates Australian Delivery Statewide Australian Delivery Inter-State International: Air Air Freight Rates International: Sea Sea Freight Rates Reliability Staff Manners
Year 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Task 2: Interpret the unemployment rates of India
In 1998, the unemployment rate in India was 12.5%. It fell to 10.9% in 1989 and dropped further in 2000 by 2.5% to 8.4%. It leveled off in 2001 and shot up 3.9% in 2002, reaching 12.3%, similar to the 1998 levels. In the two subsequent years, it rose by 2.1% each year and hit the 14.4% and 16.5% marks in 2003 and 2004 respectively.
三得利 (Shanghai) 百威 (Czech) 力波 (上海) 朝日 (Japan) 喜力 (the Netherlands)
40.7 22.3 15.2 14 2.8 1.2 0.8
Suntory: Budweiser: Reeb: Asahi: Heineken:
Task 1: Describe the information presented in table 3-1
Labor Intensive, 50.42%

Describing Chart 3-1:
Since
China launched economic reform and carried out the policy of opening the door to the outside world in1979, more and more FDI has been flowing into this country and has been playing a positive role in China’s economic development. Recently, we have made a research on the sectional distribution of FDI in China. Our findings are displayed in the pie chard above.
From
the chart, we can see that among the manufacturing sectors, approximately half of FDI has been directed towards the labor-intensive industry. Technology intensive and capital intensive sectors almost equally share the rest with 26.9 and 22.7 per cent respectively. This suggests that the main motivation of foreign companies is to take advantage of China’s low labor cost.