North America leads global hotspots for subsidiaries

Fujitsu and Honeywell International are leading the way for artificial intelligence investment among top aerospace, defence and security companies according to our analysis of a range of GlobalData data.

The world’s leading military equipment and technologies companies operate an average of 92.2 subsidiaries each. GlobalData reveals the global hotspots for these operations.

Military equipment and technologies multinationals are far more likely to establish subsidiaries in North America than the average multinational company according to analysis of GlobalData's exclusively compiled subsidiary database.

Companies establish subsidiaries for a variety of reasons: they can allow them to expand into profitable new markets, to increase revenue, and to diversify their holdings to better manage risk. As a vital component to a company’s expansion plans, the establishment of a subsidiary can offer insight into investment trends, with our database allowing you to see these investment patterns on a wider, sector level.

GlobalData’s multinational company database – which can be viewed in full on our sister site Investment Monitor – contains information for 2,188 of the world’s top multinational companies (MNCs) by revenue. Of these MNCs, 23 are in the military equipment and technologies industry, representing 1.1% of the companies in our database.

These military equipment and technologies companies are less likely than average to establish subsidiaries in Asia-Pacific (12.3% vs 21.4%) and are more likely to establish them in North America (40.5% vs 27.8%).

Overall, the 23 military equipment and technologies MNCs in our database operate 2,120 subsidiaries. This comes to an average of 92.2 subsidiaries per company, compared to an average of 99 for the entire database of 2,188 companies. It should be noted, however, that the number of subsidiaries is by no means evenly distributed within the sector. The most common number of subsidiaries for an MNC in the sector (the mode) is 124, while the median comes in at 73, indicating that the simple average is skewed heavily by the bigger parent companies.

UK-headquartered BAE Systems has the largest number of subsidiaries among the military equipment and technologies sector MNCs within our database with 277. This means it ranks in 129th place across our entire database when measured by the total number of subsidiaries.

Fujitsu and Honeywell International are leading the way for artificial intelligence investment among top aerospace, defence and security companies according to our analysis of a range of GlobalData data.

BAE Systems’ subsidiaries are distributed across the world with 58.8% of the total located in Western Europe, the highest for any region. Some 137 of BAE Systems’ subsidiaries are located in its home country of the UK, while the US was the second most popular destination with 47.

After BAE Systems, General Dynamics has the second largest number of subsidiaries within the military equipment and technologies industry MNCs in the database with 267, while L3 Harris Technologies was third with 184 and Raytheon Technologies was fourth with 167.

Overall, 884 of the subsidiaries owned by the military equipment and technologies MNCs in the database were located in the same country as the parent company was headquartered. This meant that MNCs in the sector were less likely than average to have a preference for domestic subsidiaries at 41.7%, with the figure for the entire database standing at 45.7%.