Consumer Goods Magazine just ranked the top 100 consumer companies by revenue. At Amritt, we classified them by the location of their primary corporate HQ and found that 44 of them are based in the United States. China has four companies on the list and India has just one at this time, ITC Limited.
The largest consumer company is actually Nestle of Switzerland with 2013 revenues of $103 billion. The largest American companies on the list are Procter & Gamble (#3) , PepsiCo (#4) and Coca Cola (#5) . Anglo-Dutch Unilever is ranked third on the list. Countries with more than four companies on the list include Japan (11), France (8), the United Kingdom (8), and Germany (5). Many of the top companies have a large chunk of their revenue attributable to China and India. Several business or brands that may seem American are now owned by foreign companies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, SABMiller PLC and Smithfields Group (now owned by China’s Shineway). #100 on the list is the Molson Coors Brewing Company with 2013 revenues of $4.2 billion.
The median growth rate of the top 100 consumer companies was just 3%. But three companies grew faster than 15% year over year in 2013: China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited (24%), Herbalife Ltd. (18%) and Japan’s Unicharm Corporation (16%). 28 companies suffered negative growth, with ten shrinking by over 10%. The worst affected were largely Japanese companies around negative 15% for the most part – Shieseido Company Limited, Kao Corporation, Sapporo Holdings Limited, Kirin Holdings Company and Nintendo Company Limited. But the Top 100 company that shrank the most was Dean Foods at 21%; it still managed to rank #59 on the top 100.
