For the first time ever the world is home to 300 million companies. According to numbers by data specialist BoldData half of the world’s officially registered companies (43,6%) are based in China and the USA. Moreover the biggest increase can be explained by the rise of self-employed companies. One third of all companies worldwide are freelancers/self-employed. This number has doubled in the last six years.
China tops the list
With 71,87 million, China tops the list of countries with the highest number of companies. Remarkable, as China’s economy has been rising fast for only a few decades. Prior to 1978 China only counted 558,345 companies that were largely directed and controlled by the state. Since then China began to open up and reform its economy, GDP growth has averaged almost 10 percent a year. This growth is reflected by the number of companies in China. China has surpassed USA in 2019 as the country with highest number of companies. India is third on the list. Closely followed by Brazil.
Most recent projections state that the size of China’s economy is expected to overtake U.S. in 2033. China already overtook USA as the country with the largest number of companies in 2019.
Self-employed companies on the rise
The biggest increase can be explained by the rise of self-employed companies. One third of all companies worldwide are freelancers/self-employed. This number has doubled in the last six years. With 103,89 million freelancers in 2022. Furthermore more than half of all companies are small and medium-sized with 2 – 100 employees (166,38 million). The number of large companies with more than 100 employees is 1,96 million.
The world’s factory
‘Business Services’ is the world’s largest industry, with 39,45 million companies. Retail is the second largest industry with 30,69 million companies. Followed by 26,67 million wholesale companies and 21,72 million manufacturing companies. 1 out of 3 manufacturers are based in China. With 7,263,459 manufacturing companies China is definitely the world’s factory. This is 4 times the number of manufacturers in USA.
About BoldData
We are global data experts with a highly accurate database of 300+ million companies worldwide. With our data we have helped 2,000+ companies with analytics, research and CRM. Our press release data is being used by renowned research companies such as Statista and hundreds of media outlets worldwide.
Report
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This report is based on our worldwide database. All our data is continuously updated by various sources such as chamber of commerce’s, industry organizations, local commercial registers, statistic offices, phone books (yellow pages), local public Institutions, open sources, publishers and commercial partnerships.
If you need more information, please get in touch with Daan Wolff via +3120-705-2360 or d.wolff@bolddata.nl
