The currents that will make the world a very different business environment in 2015 – according to Ian Davis, managing director of McKinsey & Co.:

• Within 20 years the GDP of Asia (excluding Japan) and Western Europe will nearly converge.
• Almost a billion new consumers will enter the global marketplace in the next decade as growth in emerging markets pushes them beyond the threshold of $5,000 annual household income – a point at which people generally begin to spend on discretionary goods.
• By 2015, annual consumer spending power in emerging economies will increase from $4,000bn to more than $9,000bn – nearly the current level in Western Europe.
• We do a billion Google searches a day, over half not in English.
• The 33m university-educated young professionals in developing countries is more than double the number in developed countries.
• More than 2bn people now use cellphones.
• We send 9,000bn e-mails a year.
• 12 per cent of American newlyweds last year met online.
• By 2015, the Hispanic population in the US will have spending power equal to 60 per cent of all consumers in China.