Stata is fairly ubiquitous in statistical circles, especially those working in econometrics. While I preferred using Stata in academia, it is expensive and R is similar, just not as easy to use.
Agreed. Stata makes common statistical operations easy, and the higher-level licenses are extremely powerful. But I prefer R because it's so much more flexible when trying to perform more complex data manipulations. Plus lots of statistical papers with new techniques include R code.