The 2016 edition of the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard (the Scoreboard) analyses the 2500 companies investing the largest sums in R&D in the world in the fiscal year 2015/16. It comprises companies based in the EU (590), the US (837), Japan (356), China (327), Taiwan (111), South Korea (75), Switzerland (58) and further 20 countries.
This Scoreboard edition shows significant worldwide rise of corporate R&D, driven by high-tech industries while revenues declined mostly due to low-tech sectors. The top 2500 Scoreboard firms invested in R&D €696bn in 2015/16, an increase of 6.6% over the previous year. EU companies increased R&D above both the world's and US's growth rates and Asian companies continued to show substantial R&D growth but a slowing of revenue growth.
R&D Growth was driven by companies operating in the largest R&D-investing industries (ICT, health and auto), that also increased significantly net sales, while the overall fall in net sales was mostly due to low world oil and commodity prices. The Software industry showed the highest R&D growth worldwide led by global software firms.
Global R&D is concentrated with the top 100 global R&D investors accounting for 53.1% of the R&D of the whole top 2500 and the top 50 companies accounting for 40%. Among the top 50 R&D investors, there are 15 EU companies, same as in last ranking and 30 firms among top 100, one more than last year.