Our IndustryWeek US 500 spotlight focuses this week on some of the biggest machinery manufacturers that not only cracked the list, but bulldozed their way into the 10 largest companies in that category. (Yes, pun intended.)
If it feels like other categories have maybe grabbed some more control of the 500 — our annual ranking of the top 500 publicly held U.S. manufacturing companies based on revenue — they have. Petroleum & Coal Products and Computers & Other Electronic Products each accounted for 54 spots this year, with Chemicals filling 52 more spots. Those three categories make up 32% of the list, nearly one of every three companies. That does, however, leave plenty of other slots.
Machinery managed to fill just two of the top 40 spots this year, and just four spots among the top 100, but it filled the rest of the 500 all the way down the list. In total, 36 machinery manufacturers are among the 500 largest manufacturers right now by revenue.
Before we dive into the top 10, a quick note: Based on just the numbers, 2016 was not a particularly strong year for industrial machinery manufacturers. Each of the 14 largest companies by revenue notched negative revenue growth during the fiscal year, as did 28 of the 36 who made the list. Half of the top 10 recorded negative net income for the year, and the total net income among that group was negative $2.849 billion. There are plenty of reasons for these numbers and plenty of stories to tell. But right now, we share just the numbers.
No formulas. No opinions. Just cold, hard numbers.
