Volkswagen tops the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 2013

Despite the continued economic and financial crisis, major companies continued to increase their R&D investments in 2012, with spending from US companies increasing by eight per cent and EU companies by six per cent. But increases are patchy, with companies based in Finland, Denmark and Spain seeing a decrease in expenditure.

This is the finding of the European Commission’s annual Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, which looks at the top 2,000 companies for R&D investment, representing more than 90 per cent of the total world expenditure.The top investors are based primarily in the US (658), EU (527), and Japan (353), with Germany and the UK topping the EU list. For the first time since 2004, an EU company – Volkswagen – is the largest spender, with the German carmaker investing €9.5 billion in R&D in 2012.

The top three EU investors, Volkswagen, Daimler and Robert Bosch, are all based in Germany, where spending on R&D in 2012 increased well above the top 2,000 average, at 11.6 per cent. Meanwhile, companies based in the UK and France increased R&D spending by 0.5 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively.In many countries, the figures are based on spending of a very small number of firms. The R&D growth of over 51 per cent in Fiat, for example, contributed significantly to the R&D growth in Italy.

Big spenders in R&D

While Volkswagen topped the list, Samsung Electronics from South Korea scooped second place, with the remainder of the top ten coming from the US (Merck US, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Microsoft, and Intel), Switzerland (Roche and Novartis), and Japan (Toyota).

The largest R&D increases in the top 100 group continues to be in the automobiles and parts and ICT sectors, with the Indian conglomerate Tata Motors increasing its spending by 77.6 per cent.

Five American ICT companies – Google, Oracle, Qualcomm, Apple and Broadcom increased both R&D and net sales by more than 200 per cent since 2004.