The math is clear: more than 80% of the world's population lives in developing countries, and these markets account for 40% of the world economy, adjusting for purchasing-power parity, which takes into account the relative cost of living and inflation rates by country. However, less than 12% of the S&P 500's revenue comes from emerging markets. Even for a global giant like General Electric the figure is a mere 19%.rnThis imbalance simply cannot hold. The opportunities in the rapidly developing economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America are too big to ignore. They're also very easy to mishandle. A few companies have decided that these markets are too poor to justify investment. Still others have tried to compete by selling the same product they sell in the developed world but for lower prices by shrinking the package size or by stripping out features.
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