In 2018 there were 3,103 Swedish controlled enterprise groups with affiliates abroad, a decrease of 96 groups since 2017. Of these enterprise groups 1,116 or 36 per cent had subsidiaries in Norway. Between 17 and 21 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 over 2.1 million, an increase of 6 per cent over the preceding year. The number of employees abroad increased by 50,468 to 1,506,435 and the number in Sweden increased by 70,564 to 659,383 employees.

The largest increases in individual countries took place in the Norway where the number of employees in the Swedish controlled groups increased by 14,987 and in Latvia, where the number of employees increased by 9,009. Swedish controlled enterprise groups decreased their number of employees in a few countries, in India their number of employees decreased by 5,479 and in China by 2,793 employees. The countries where Swedish enterprise groups had their largest number of employees were US with 235,899, Germany with 103,820 and China with 102,748 employees.

Approximately half of the employees abroad were in a group with at least 5,000 employees in Sweden. The 30 enterprise groups with at least 5,000 employees in Sweden accounted for about 51 per cent of all employees in foreign countries, and 42 per cent of employees in Sweden.

The total turnover for the Swedish groups with affiliates abroad accounted to 5,977 billion for year 2018. Abroad the total turnover was 3,713 billion and the total turnover in Sweden was 2,263 billion. That was an increase of 12 per cent abroad and a increase of 4 per cent in Sweden over the preceding year.