What is revenue define total revenue average revenue and marginal revenue along with formula?

The Average Revenue is defined as the revenue that an organisation can avail by selling a unit of their product or service. You can obtain the average revenue by dividing the total revenue for a specific duration by the number of units sold during that same period. It is an important economic concept that helps businesses analyse whether their revenue per item is increasing or decreasing over a period of time. It allows an enterprise to estimate the earnings from its operations. The profits in a business are the difference between the Average Revenue and average cost. The market structure heavily influences the Average Revenue of a firm. In a perfectly competitive market, the Average Revenue is equal to the price of a product and the marginal revenue, while in a monopolistic or oligopolistic market it is higher than the marginal revenue.

Marginal Revenue

The Marginal Revenue is defined as the income that an organisation can avail of by selling an additional unit of their product or service. You can obtain the Marginal Revenue by dividing the change in total revenue by the change in the number of units sold. It is also a very important economic concept that helps businesses analyse whether producing an additional unit of a product or service leads to an increase or decrease in its earnings. It is the basis of the concept of diminishing marginal utility. Marginal Revenue remains constant till the firm achieves a certain level of output. Beyond that, it will start decreasing as per the law of diminishing returns. The management uses this concept to understand the customer demand for their products, set the price and plan production schedules accordingly. The market structure also influences the Marginal Revenue of a firm. In a perfectly competitive market, the marginal revenue is equal to the price of a product and the average revenue, while in a monopolistic or oligopolistic market it is lower than the Average Revenue.

Differences between Average Revenue and Marginal Revenue

Some of the significant differences between Average Revenue and Marginal Revenue are as follows:

Average Revenue

Marginal Revenue

Definition

The Average Revenue is defined as the revenue that an organisation can avail by selling a unit of their product or service.

The Marginal Revenue is defined as the income that an organisation can avail by selling an additional unit of their product or service.

Formula

Average Revenue = Total revenue/total quantity

Marginal Revenue = Change in total revenue/change in total quantity

Effect of the Market Structure

The market structure influences the Average Revenue of a firm. In a perfectly competitive market, the average revenue is equal to the price of a product and the Marginal Revenue, while in a monopolistic or oligopolistic market it is higher than the Marginal Revenue.

The market structure also influences the Marginal Revenue of a firm. In a perfectly competitive market, the marginal revenue is equal to the price of a product and the Average Revenue, while in a monopolistic or oligopolistic market, it is lower than the Average Revenue.

Uses

The Average Revenue helps a firm analyse whether the earnings from producing a unit is decreasing or increasing over a period of time.

The Marginal Revenue helps a firm analyse whether the earnings from producing an additional unit is increasing or decreasing over a period of time.

Example

If a firm is producing 100 units of a product and their total revenue is Rs.100000, then the Average Revenue of a firm is:

Average Revenue = 100000/100 = Rs. 1000 per product

If a total revenue of a firm is Rs.100000 for 100 units of a product and Rs. 101000 for 101 units of a product, then the Marginal Revenue of a firm is:

Marginal Revenue = (101000 – 100000)/(101 – 100) = Rs. 1000

Conclusion

There are stark differences between Average Revenue and Marginal Revenue. But a firm needs both these economic concepts to decide on the optimal levels of production for their commodity. They also need these two figures to analyse whether the current selling price of their product needs any change.

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How do you know how well a company is operating? What does it mean for a company to have had a billion pounds in total revenue in a single year? What does that mean for the company’s average revenue and marginal revenue? What do these concepts mean in economics, and how do firms use them in their day-to-day business operations?

This explanation will teach you what you need to know about total revenue, average revenue, and marginal revenue.

Marginal, average, and total revenue: a definition

To understand the meaning of marginal and average revenue, you have to start by understanding the meaning of total revenue.

Total revenue is all the money a firm makes during a period by selling the goods and services it produces.

The total revenue doesn’t take into account the cost that the firm incurs during a production process. Instead, it only takes into account the money coming from selling what the firm produces. As the name suggests, total revenue is all the money coming into the firm from selling its products. Any additional unit of output sold would increase the total revenue.

Average revenue shows how much revenue there is per unit of output. In other words, it calculates how much revenue a firm receives, on average, from each unit of product they sell. To calculate the average revenue, you have to take the total revenue and divide it by the number of output units.

Average revenue shows how much revenue there is per unit of output.

Marginal revenue refers to the increase in total revenue from increasing one output unit. To calculate the marginal revenue, you have to take the difference in total revenue and divide it by the difference in total output.

Marginal revenue is the increase in total revenue from increasing one output unit.

Let’s say that the firm has a total revenue of £100 after producing 10 units of output. The firm hires an additional worker, and the total revenue increases to £110, while the output increases to 12 units.

What’s the marginal revenue in this case?

Marginal revenue = (£110-£100)/(12-10) = £5.

That means that the new worker generated £5 of revenue for an additional unit of output produced.

Figure 1. illustrates the three types of revenue.

Why is the average revenue the firm’s demand curve?

The average revenue curve is also the firm’s demand curve. Let's see why.

Figure 2. Average Revenue and the Demand Curve, StudySmarter Originals

Figure 1 above illustrates how the demand curve for the firm’s output equals the average revenue a firm experiences. Imagine there’s a firm that sells chocolate. What do you think would happen when the firm charges £6 per chocolate?

By charging £6 per unit of chocolate the firm can sell 30 units of chocolate. That suggests that the firm makes £6 per chocolate sold. The firm then decides to decrease the price to £2 per chocolate, and the number of chocolates it sells at this price increases to 50.

Note that the amount of sales at each price is equal to the firm’s average revenue. As the demand curve also shows the average revenue the firm makes at each price level, the demand curve equals the firm’s average revenue.

You can also calculate the firm’s total revenue by simply multiplying the quantity by the price. When the price equals £6, the quantity demanded is 20 units. Therefore, the firm's total revenue is equal to £120.

Marginal, average, and total revenue formula and examples

Let’s look at some formulas and examples of the marginal, average, and total revenue.

Total revenue formula

The total revenue formula helps firms calculate the amount of the total money that entered the company during a given sales period. The total revenue formula equals the amount of output sold multiplied by the price.

Figure 3. Relationship between marginal and total revenue, StudySmarter Originals

All in all, as the marginal revenue measures the increase in total revenue from selling an additional unit of output, it helps firms decide whether it’s wise to increase their total sales by producing more.

The relationship between marginal and average revenue

The relationship between marginal revenue and average revenue can be contrasted between the two opposite market structures: perfect competition and monopoly.

In perfect competition, there is a huge number of firms supplying goods and services that are homogenous. As a result, firms can’t influence the market price as even the slightest increase would lead to no demand for their product. This means that there is perfectly elastic demand for their product. Due to the perfectly elastic demand, the rate at which total revenue increases is constant.

Since the price remains constant, an additional product sold will always increase the total sales by the same amount. Marginal revenue shows how much total revenue increases as a result of an additional unit sold. As total revenues increase at a constant rate, the marginal revenue will be constant. Additionally, average revenue shows the revenue per product sold, which is also constant. This leads to marginal revenue being equal to the average revenue in a perfectly competitive market structure (Figure 4).

In contrast, in an imperfectly competitive market structure, such as a monopoly, you can observe a different relationship between average revenue and marginal revenue. In such a market, a firm faces a downward-sloping demand curve equal to average revenue in Figure 2. The marginal revenue will always be equal to or smaller than the average revenue in an imperfectly competitive market (Figure 5). That’s due to the change in output sold when prices change.

Marginal, Average and Total Revenue - Key takeaways

  • As the name suggests, total revenue is all the money coming into a firm from selling its products.
  • Average revenue shows how much revenue a single unit of output brings on average.
  • Marginal revenue refers to the increase in total revenue from increasing output sold by one unit.
  • As the demand curve also shows the average revenue the firm makes at each price level, the demand curve equals the firm’s average revenue.
  • The total revenue formula equals the amount of output sold multiplied by the price.
  • Average revenue is calculated by dividing the total revenue by the total amount of output.
  • Marginal revenue is equal to the difference of total revenues divided by the difference in total quantity.
  • Marginal revenue is equal to the average revenue in a perfectly competitive market structure.
  • The marginal revenue will always be equal to or smaller than the average revenue in an imperfectly competitive market.