Visa (US)

By some standards, Visa would almost certainly qualify as the world's single biggest business. During 2006, the company processed sales worth close to $5 trillion. Virtually every individual reading this paragraph either owns or has used a Visa card. There are currently almost 1.4 billion of them in circulation worldwide, and the company more or less invented our modern world of cash-free payments without boundaries. Literally hundreds of other businesses (including Dell and Amazon) would probably not exist had it not been for Visa's innovation. Despite high profile marketing battles against rivals MasterCard and American Express, Visa remains the world's leading provider of payment solutions, and by quite some margin. But it is also arguably the world's best-known unknown. Few of its customers could say who owns it, where it is based, or perhaps even what exactly the company does. Advertising Age estimated global measured advertising expenditure of $538m in 2006, making Visa the world's #60 advertiser. Click here to access the Adbrands profile (subscribers only); or subscribe to Adbrands.net here. Adbrands Company Profiles provide a detailed analysis of the history and current operations of leading advertisers, agencies and brands worldwide, and include a critical summary which identifies key strengths and weaknesses. Adbrands Account Assignments tracks account management for the world's leading brands and companies, including details of which advertising agency handles which accounts in which countries for major markets.

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Competitors: see Financial & Insurance Sector for other companies

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Visa International website

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