In 2024, there were 3,466,208 enterprises in the Industry, Construction, Trade and Non-financial Services sectors in Spain. Of these, 72,709, or 2.1% of the total, were part of a business group -it should be noted that for the first time this statistic included the sector Construction-.
These enterprises that were part of groups accounted for 42.4% of all the employed personnel and generated 65.1% of the turnover of these four sectors.
In terms of size, enterprises that were part of groups accounted for a large part of the turnover of enterprises with 250 or more employees. Thus, large companies belonging to Spanish multinationals accounted for 15.6% of the total turnover. And those that were part of foreign multinationals, 20.4%.
As for those that were not part of groups, they recorded their greatest contribution to the turnover of enterprises with fewer than 10 employees, accounting for 16.9% of the total.
Percentage with respect to the total of enterprises resident in Spain
By sectors, multinational group enterprises generated the highest turnover in Industry, with 19.4% of the total. Meanwhile, the largest contribution to turnover from companies that were not part of a group occurred in Trade, with 13.3% of the total.
Analysing various indicators, enterprises belonging to corporate groups (especially multinationals) showed higher productivity, higher sales outside Spain and greater investment intensity than the rest in 2024.
Productivity: added value at factor cost / employed personnel.
Sales rate outside Spain: sales outside Spain / turnover*100.
Material investment rate: Investment in material assets / value added at factor cost * 100.
In 2024, there were 17,898 affiliates of foreign enterprises in the Industry, Construction, Trade and Non-financial market services sectors. These affiliates generated a turnover totalling 851,179 million euros and employed 2,561,593 people.
52.6% of the affiliate enterprises were in the Services sector, 26.6% in the Trade sector, 14.4% in the Industrial sector and 6.4% in Construction.
Affiliates in the Industrial sector generated 41.0% of the total turnover of these companies. As for employment, those in the Services sector employed 52.2% of the total.
Main variables by activity sector
The branch of activity that recorded the largest number of affiliates was Professional, scientific and technical activities (14.1% of the total). In terms of turnover, the sector that contributed most was Transport material (11.6% of the total). Meanwhile, the one with the most employees was Administrative and support services activities (14.5% of the total).
With regard to the contribution of each branch of activity, we should highlight Transport material, for which 82.9% of the overall turnover was generated by foreign affiliate enterprises.
The following branches with the greatest contributions were Electrical, electronic and optical materials and equipment and Chemical and pharmaceutical industry, with respective totals of 50.3% and 48.0%.
In contrast, the sectors with the lowest contributions were Education, Specialised Construction Activities, Building Construction, and Other Services (except associative activities), all of which with less than 10.0%.
The countries whose affiliates generated the greatest turnovers in 2024 were France (15.5% of the total), Germany (14.0%) and the United States (11.8%).
The countries that contributed the greatest number of affiliates were the United States (11.0% of the total), Germany (11.0%) and France (10.5%).
It should be noted that the top ten countries accounted for 72.3% of the total number of affiliates and 84.7% of the turnover generated by these affiliates.
Percentage
By geographical areas, the affiliates with parent companies in the Euro Zone generated 56.7% of the turnover of all affiliates in Spain. The rest of Europe accounted for 17.2%, America 14.7%, and Asia and ROW 11.4%.
The data published today are final. All results are available on INEBase.
In accordance with the Commission's Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/137, the INE has begun to work on incorporating the new National Classification of Economic Activities CNAE-2025 in all its statistical operations.
In the case of the EEPG, the first publication of results with CNAE-2025 will take place in 2027.
The Business Statistics on Affiliated Enterprises (EEPG by its Spanish initials) presents annual information on the main economic and employment variables of enterprises resident in Spain from industrial, commercial and non-financial services sectors, classifying the statistical findings according to whether the enterprise forms part of a corporate group, differentiating by the type of group (entirely domestically held, Spanish multinational or foreign multinational). The statistic includes economic aggregates such as the value of production and gross value added, as well as the main indicators.
In addition, specifically for enterprises of foreign multinationals in Spain (i.e. affiliates of foreign enterprises in Spain), it describes information by the activity and size of the affiliate enterprise, as well as the country or geographical area of the parent company with ultimate control over it.
Starting in 2024, the Business Statistics on Affiliated Companies (BSAC) expands its coverage to the Construction sector, as a result of the inclusion of this sector into the Structural Statistics of Companies.
The EEPG integrates the information of the Structural Business Statistics in the Industry, Trade and Services sectors and adds information related to the membership and typology of the business group that the enterprise forms part of. The above enables us to offer statistical results classifying enterprises residing in Spain into sub-populations of interest for macroeconomic analysis and the study of globalisation.
More information on the methodology and the standardised methodological report.
INE statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics. More information on Quality at INE and the Code of Best Practices.
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