Date
01 Jan 2015
The 2015 EU R&D Scoreboard (the Scoreboard) reports economic and financial information on the world's top 2500 companies that invested €607.2 billion in R&D over the last fiscal year (2014). It comprises 608 companies based in the EU, 829 companies based in the US, 360 in Japan and 703 from the rest of the world.
Key findings from the 2015 Scoreboard include:
- In 2014, the top world 2500 R&D Scoreboard companies raised their R&D by 6.8%, while revenues continued to grow at a significant lower pace (2.2%).
- Companies based in the EU showed an annual R&D investment growth rate of 3.3%, slightly improving the previous year's performance (2.5%). Companies based in the US showed a stronger R&D investment growth rate (8.1%). The Chinese companies, 3rd largest country by number of companies in this edition, increased R&D investments by 23.6%.
- Companies in the ICT, Pharmaceuticals and Automobiles sectors continue to dominate the top 10 places in the world ranking. As in the previous edition, the top 5 R&D investors are Volkswagen, Samsung, Microsoft, Intel and Novartis. The most significant changes at the top of the ranking in 2014 are the climb of Google to 6th place (from 9th), and of Pfizer to the 10th place (from 15th). Huawei (15th) and Apple (18th) accelerated in 2014 their race to the top, jumping 11 and 17 positions respectively.
- An analysis of the patent portfolios of the world's top R&D investors shows that EU and US companies have the highest degrees of internationalisation of their inventive activities: 26% and 22% of their patent families are developed by inventors located outside the region. While the US appear to be the preferred location for health related inventions (pharma and biotech in particular), Europe is the most attractive place for the inventive activities of automobile companies.