Income Statement Waterfall vs. Sankey

An income statement shows a company's revenues and expenses in a given reporting period, usually quarterly or yearly. It's also known as a profit and loss (P&L) statement.

At its basic form, it's a table with two columns. The left column contains a detailed breakdown of individual revenues and expenses. The right columns contains the amount of each item.

Traditionally, a waterfall chart is commonly used to visualize an income statement. In recent years, using a Sankey diagram has been trending.

Below, we're going to comparing these two methods by visualizing the same Apple Q1 FY25 income statement.