The World’s Most Lucrative Business Markets

What global business markets make people the most money? It depends. If following the law and paying taxes plays a role, oil, weapons, and alcohol are decent bets.

For those who prefer the black market side of things, however, you can’t beat illegal products like drugs and counterfeits.

We’ve combined the best of the world’s legal and black markets to provide a list of the world’s most lucrative business markets.

Note: We determined this list based on the size of the market (hundreds of billions to trillions), the proportion of profits to revenues, and industry growth.

Some markets have matured, but have the market size necessary for this list; others are still smallish, but growing so rapidly and profitably that we included them, too.