International
R&D Scorecard 2007: US firms account for 40% of Research and Development spending by the top Global 1,250 companies
By Finfacts Team
Nov 12, 2007, 05:00

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The UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills published its Annual R&D Scorecard on Monday, ranking spending by 1,250 global companies and 850 UK companies.

Check the 'Downloads' tab on the left-hand column for the full 1,250 ranking. The link wasn't working at the time of posting this news report. Alternatively click:

FT 1,250 Ranking in Excel format

Three Irish companies are in the rankings: Irish drugs firm Elan got a 339 rank, spending £114.76 -  45% of sales. Kerry Group got a 394 rank, spending £93.67 - 3% of sales; Bank of Ireland got a 598 rank, spending £55.25 - 1.3% of sales.

Global R&D spending by the G1250 rose by 10% in 2006 to £244bn ($510bn, €348bn).

It continues to be dominated by companies registered in just five countries – the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK – which contributed 81% of R&D by the G1250. Firms from India and China have yet to establish themselves as significant players in the G1250, although other evidence suggests that both countries are increasingly important locations for R&D. Globally, average R&D intensity remains unchanged at 3.5% of sales.

The scoreboard shows the US moving ahead of Europe and the rest of the world. Its largest companies boosted their R&D investment by 13.4% to £98.6bn, 40% of the global total.

China and India both posted growth of more than 30% but from low bases – £766m for China and £268m for India. Israel’s eight companies in the top 1,250 increased their spending 27.8% to £492m – 84% higher than India’s figure.

R&D investment in the global pharmaceuticals sector grew by 16% in the last year; it has replaced technology hardware (which grew by 13%) as the largest global R&D sector. Other rapidly growing sectors amongst the ten largest investors were the software and aerospace & defence sectors which both grew at more than 12%.

Analysis in this Scoreboard suggests that, overall, the 75 UK companies in the G1250 have increased their R&D expenditure more quickly than their global peers in the same sectors, largely due to the concentration of UK firms in fast growing sectors such as pharmaceuticals. In many sectors, however, UK firms increased their R&D more slowly than their global peers.

There are well-established links between R&D growth and intensity and sales growth, wealth creation efficiency and market value.

Alongside excellent operations and strategic decision-making, companies continue to regard investment in R&D as a key factor determining future success: the Scoreboard shows this especially strongly in the UK’s aerospace, software and technology firms.

83% of UK R&D is conducted by the hundred most active companies and more than half of R&D activity by the 75 UK companies represented in the G1250 takes place in the pharmaceuticals and aerospace sectors.

R&D company spending was highest in the pharmaceuticals and biotech, with a 15.7% rise to £47.4bn, accounting for almost a fifth of the global total. US pharma giant Pfizer was the biggest spender.

Technology hardware and equipment spending was £43.1bn, up 13.2% with chipmaker Intel, heading the sector.

Microsoft  was the biggest spender in the software and computer services sector, with an 8% rise to £3.6bn, putting it fourth in the league table of the global 1,250 top companies. R&D spending in the sector has fallen 6.5% over the last four years

Cars and parts was the third biggest sector with R&D investment rising 1.6% and marked by cuts among the top three US auto companies.

The biggest R&D spenders outside the US and Europe were Toyota, the Japanese carmaker, which raised its spending 8% to £3.5bn, and Korea’s Samsung Electronics, which spent £3.1bn, up 4%.

Value Added - Europe's Top 750 companies

The wealth created by a company is defined as value added (VA) which is: Value Added = Sales less Costs of bought-in goods and services

This can be calculated from European companies’ audited accounts.

The top 750 European companies by value added (VA) created £1723bn of wealth (VA) in 2005/06, up 12% on the previous year (compared to a 9% increase recorded in 2006).

This VA is highly concentrated in the UK, Germany and France (63%), in six sectors (45%) and in the top 100 companies (55%) with the top 50 alone contributing over 38%.

Banks account for more that half Irish company value added. CRH, Ryanair, Kerry, Grafton and INM make up the rest.

The Scoreboard website is at www.innovation.gov.uk/value_added. The website contains a calculator function so that companies that are too small to be in the Scoreboard can calculate their value added and value added ratios and then benchmark themselves against UK and other European companies in their sector. The on-line calculator is at www.innovation.gov.uk/value_added/calculator.asp

Ranking of the the Top 100 Global Companies by R&D investment

Company Country Rank £m growth over last year (%) as % of sales
Pfizer USA 1 3,882.59 2 14.5
Ford Motor USA 2 3,678.73 -10 4.5
Johnson Johnson USA 3 3,640.41 13 13.4
Microsoft USA 4 3,638.36 8 13.9
DaimlerChrysler Germany 5 3,526.48 -7 3.4
Toyota Motor Japan 6 3,484.71 8 3.9
GlaxoSmithKline UK 7 3,457.00 10 14.9
Siemens Germany 8 3,384.99 -3 5.8
General Motors USA 9 3,372.16 -1 3.2
Samsung Electronics South Korea 10 3,139.72 4 6.7
Intel USA 11 3,000.72 14 16.6
Sanofi-Aventis France 12 2,967.26 9 15.5
IBM USA 13 2,899.55 6 6.2
Volkswagen Germany 14 2,856.76 4 4.0
Roche Switzerland 15 2,757.94 15 15.7
Novartis Switzerland 16 2,740.65 11 14.5
Nokia Finland 17 2,501.01 2 9.0
Merck USA 18 2,443.75 24 21.1
Matsushita Electric Japan 19 2,421.83 -8 6.4
Robert Bosch Germany 20 2,289.45 16 7.8
Sony Japan 21 2,280.39 6 7.7
Honda Motor Japan 22 2,188.58 9 5.2
BMW Germany 23 2,161.43 3 6.5
Motorola USA 24 2,097.90 12 9.4
Cisco Systems USA 25 2,077.97 22 14.3
Ericsson Sweden 26 2,005.18 5 15.1
AstraZeneca UK 27 1,993.66 15 14.7
EADS Netherlands 28 1,933.03 21 7.3
Nissan Motor Japan 29 1,919.27 12 4.7
Hewlett-Packard USA 30 1,834.76 3 3.9
Hitachi Japan 31 1,737.02 4 4.3
Amgen USA 32 1,719.80 45 23.6
Boeing USA 33 1,664.11 48 5.3
Bayer Germany 34 1,655.44 30 7.7
Renault France 35 1,617.03 6 5.9
Eli Lilly USA 36 1,598.87 3 19.9
Toshiba Japan 37 1,597.09 7 5.9
Wyeth USA 38 1,588.52 13 15.3
Bristol-Myers Squibb USA 39 1,567.04 12 17.1
General Electric USA 40 1,516.96 8 1.8
Peugeot (PSA) France 41 1,465.44 1 3.8
Alcatel-Lucent France 42 1,339.44 11 13.8
Sun Microsystems USA 43 1,327.41 46 19.9
NTT Japan 44 1,322.65 -3 2.9
Canon Japan 45 1,322.05 8 7.4
Philips Electronics Netherlands 46 1,312.49 -17 6.3
Finmeccanica Italy 47 1,259.26 7 16.1
BAE Systems UK 48 1,248.00 -14 10.1
Abbott Laboratories USA 49 1,152.30 24 10.0
Oracle USA 50 1,121.50 17 12.2
Texas Instruments USA 50 1,121.50 9 15.0
BT UK 52 1,119.00 54 5.5
Schering-Plough USA 53 1,117.92 17 20.7
Denso Japan 54 1,099.21 8 8.0
Delphi USA 55 1,072.96 -5 8.0
Boehringer Ingelheim Germany 56 1,060.50 16 14.9
Procter Gamble USA 57 1,060.19 7 3.0
Fujitsu Japan 58 1,035.86 1 5.0
Nortel Networks Canada 59 990.70 4 17.0
LG Electronics South Korea 60 917.27 -6 3.6
BASF Germany 61 876.77 20 2.5
SAP Germany 62 874.62 19 13.8
Volvo Sweden 63 841.57 7 4.4
STMicroelectronics Netherlands 64 824.14 4 16.4
Fiat Italy 65 797.74 -10 2.3
Infineon Technologies Germany 66 796.39 -5 14.9
Hyundai Motor South Korea 67 796.37 -11 2.3
Qualcomm USA 68 785.82 52 20.4
United Technologies USA 69 781.22 12 3.2
Fuji Photo Film Japan 70 781.09 8 6.8
EMC USA 71 750.97 25 13.2
Takeda Pharmaceutical Japan 72 727.45 20 14.0
Nestle Switzerland 73 725.80 16 1.7
Honeywell USA 74 720.93 32 4.5
Caterpillar USA 75 688.23 24 3.2
Daiichi Sankyo Japan 76 680.76 n/a 17.1
EI du Pont de Nemours USA 77 665.24 -3 4.7
Sharp Japan 78 661.92 4 5.5
Medtronic USA 79 633.05 11 10.1
Google USA 80 627.73 105 11.6
Advanced Micro Devices USA 81 615.68 5 21.3
Freescale Semiconductor USA 82 610.57 24 20.5
Unilever UK 83 610.43 -5 2.2
Astellas Pharma Japan 84 609.24 141 16.2
AKZO Nobel Netherlands 85 596.96 6 6.5
Dow Chemical USA 86 594.73 8 2.4
Applied Materials USA 87 588.76 23 12.6
Lockheed Martin USA 88 581.95 9 3.4
France Telecom France 89 576.74 20 1.6
Novo Nordisk Denmark 90 570.86 24 16.3
Broadcom USA 91 570.72 72 30.5
Sanyo Electric Japan 92 543.59 -4 5.2
Allergan USA 93 539.29 170 34.5
Electronic Arts USA 94 531.88 37 33.7
Valeo France 95 531.60 1 7.9
Mitsubishi Electric Japan 96 519.05 2 3.4
Boston Scientific USA 97 515.02 48 12.9
Altria USA 98 513.49 7 1.4
Merck Germany 99 492.86 3 11.7
Forest Laboratories USA 100 480.79 129 29.6
           


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