Thursday, February 03, 2011

Top 500 U.S. Manufacturing Firms Had Sales in 2010 of $4.5 Trillion, Greater Than Germany's GDP

IndustryWeek recently released its 2010 annual report for the 500 largest publicly held U.S. manufacturing companies based on revenue.  Here are some factoids:

1. The combined sales revenue (including global sales) of the top 500 U.S.-based manufacturing for 2010 was $4.55 trillion.  To put that in perspective, that amount of revenue would put that group of U.S. manufacturing companies between the entire $5.4 trillion GDP of Japan in 2010 (world's third largest economy) and the $3.3 trillion GDP of Germany in 2010 (world's fourth largest economy).  

2. The top ten largest U.S. manufacturing companies (Exxon, Chevron, GE, Conoco, Ford, H-P, IBM, Proctor and Gamble, ADM and Boeing) had combined revenues of $1.3 trillion, almost as much as Spain's GDP in 2010 of $1.374 trillion.  

3. By manufacturing industry, "Computers and Other Electronic Products" (HP, IBM, etc.) was the second largest sector with almost $600 billion of sales behind #1 ranked Petroleum and Coal Products (Exxon, etc.), chemicals (Proctor & Gamble, Dow) was #3 with $387 billion in sales, pharmaceuticals was #5 (Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, etc.), aerospace and defense was #6 (Boeing, etc.). 

4. The company ranked #500 for 2010 was Polymer Group with $883 million in sales, so there are probably thousands of additional medium- and small-sized manufacturers in U.S. that employ thousands of employees and with annual revenues below $883 million, but that generate billions of additional dollars in sales for American manufacturers. 

And yet don't we hear all the time about the decline of U.S. manufacturing, and how "nothing is made here any more?" 


5 Comments:

At 2/04/2011 6:01 AM, Blogger rjs said...

how much of what they sold in 2010 was manufactured in germany, or for that matter, china?

 
At 2/04/2011 8:33 AM, Blogger Chris said...

Yes, while I'm generally sympathetic with your argument about the strength of US manufacturing, this isn't a strong argument. These companies have global labor forces, so their corporate revenues don't tell us much about how much is manufactured in the US. On the other hand, this statistic also doesn't include firms based outside of the US that manufacture goods within the US – Japanese autos made in Ohio, Russian coal mines operating in West Virginia, etc.

 
At 2/04/2011 11:24 AM, Blogger Buddy R Pacifico said...

Industry Week culls the Top 500 Manufacturing Firms for the 50 Best Manufacturers.

The 50 Best Manufacturers had superior metrics for the last three years of:
Revenue Growth
Profit Margin
Inventory Turn
Return on Assets and Equity

The #1 company was founded in 1760 with its HQ in North Carolina and the industry is tobacco. The very best is Lollilard.

 
At 2/04/2011 12:42 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Again buddy you come through with an very interesting link...

Thanks...

First Solar on the list you linked to looks very interesting but you might find this December Bloomberg story regarding that sector interesting...

 
At 2/04/2011 1:38 PM, Blogger Buddy R Pacifico said...

juandos,

Yeah it looks like Goldman Sachs and others are downdgrading outlooks for this company. One has to wonder about the viability of solar tax credits in the future.

BUT,

First Solar is doubling capacity because "Basically demand exceeds our manufacturing capacity to supply".

 

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