In 2012 there were 2,628 Swedish controlled enterprise groups with affiliates abroad, an increase of 206 groups since 2011. Of these enterprise groups, 814 or 31 per cent had subsidiaries in Norway. Between 18 and 20 per cent of the enterprise groups had subsidiaries established in Finland, Denmark and USA.

The number of employees in the Swedish controlled enterprise groups with affiliates abroad amounted to 1.81 million, an increase of 5 per cent over the preceding year. The number of employees abroad increased by 59,606 to 1.27 million and the number in Sweden by 21,620 to 536,691.

The largest increases in individual countries took place in China, where the number of employees in the Swedish controlled groups increased by 9,236 and in Norway, where the number of employees increased by 8,024. Swedish controlled enterprise groups decreased their number of employees in a few countries; in Spain by 2,406 and in France by 2,063. The countries where Swedish enterprise groups had most employees were the USA with 197,455, Germany with 98,905 and China with 80,493.

The majority of employees abroad were in groups with at least 5,000 employees in Sweden. The 23 enterprise groups with at least 5,000 employees in Sweden accounted for about 61 per cent of all employees in foreign countries, and 45 per cent of employees in Sweden.

In this year’s report, variable turnover is included for the Swedish groups with affiliates abroad for the third time. The total turnover abroad in 2012 was SEK 2,740 billion and total turnover in Sweden SEK 1,701 billion. The countries where the Swedish groups had the largest percentage of their foreign turnover were the USA with 16 per cent, followed by Germany with 12 per cent and Norway with 7 per cent.