The World’s Largest Multinationals
The focus of this paper, then, is to identify and analyze the set of MNEs registered and based in the world’s emerging markets. To do this I take as the relevant population the world’s 500 largest firms, ranked by total revenues, as compiled annually in the Fortune Global 500. This entire set of 500 firms (most of which are MNEs) was analyzed in Rugman (2005). In that study the focus was on an examination of data on the regional sales of MNEs from the “broad” triad markets of Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific, which accounts for nearly all of the 500 firms. The total number of MNEs from the “core” triad of the EU, United States, and Japan in from emerging markets are mainly from Asia Pacific. Only two are from Europe, the Russian firms (Gazpron and Lukoil). Another 3 are from the Americas (Pemex and Carso Global
Telecom from Mexico, and one oil firm from Venezuela). In contrast, there are 12 firms from the Republic of Korea. Another 12 are from China with another 2 from Taiwan, one from
Singapore, and one from Malaysia.
Table 3 here
Relatively few of the set of 32 MNEs from emerging economies in year 2001 provide data on the geographic dispersion of their sales. Using the 2001 data and the methodology in
Rugman (2005), the following facts emerge. First, five South Korean firms provide data which show that all of them are home-region oriented. For example, POSCO has 91.9% of its sales in
Asia Pacific, while Hyundai Motor has 81.6% of its sales in Asia Pacific and 18.1% in North
America. The remaining three Korean firms are close to being bi-regional, but need to be classified as home-region based since more than 50% of their sales are in Asia Pacific. These include Samsung Electronics, which has 60.6% of its sales in Asia Pacific; 20.8% in North
America; and 18.3% in Europe. Then LG Electronics has 60.4% of its sales in Asia Pacific;
23.6% in North America; and 11.7% in Europe. Finally, Hyundai (different from Hyundai
Motor) has 56.3% of its sales in Asia Pacific; 24.2% in North America, and 10.5% in Europe.
Only one of the 34 multinationals from emerging markets is a global firm. This is
Flextronics of Singapore. It has only 19.8% of its sales in its home region, but 44% in North
America, and 36.2% in Europe. This firm is clearly an exception