An overall indication of how divisions within the company fare inside their respective markets, including information such as market share or percentage change in sales. A sense the company is truly attempting to tell its story to the average shareholder. This helps analysts when they recommend a stock for purchase. Average shareholders will often make decisions to purchase more shares based on an annual report they like. On the other hand, shareholders generally will not sell off shares based on an annual report they don't like.
Shareholders tend to use the annual report to recommend purchase of stocks to friends and relatives.
Potential investors usually ask a company for a copy of their report before making a decision to buy stock. Although most shareholders do not read the financial review section, many do read the financial highlights. Graphs and charts are an effective way to illustrate growth in the highlights, giving readers a quick understanding without requiring an analysis of the data. The shareholders letter, because it is too often written in passive and verbose language, gets skimmed over by most readers. To insure that the most important messages don't get lost, it's a good idea to use subheads to highlight key information.