Apple Tesla & Amazon Are The World’s ‘Most Innovative Companies’ In 2023

Every year, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) releases their Most Innovative Companies ranking.

Based on a survey of over 1,000 innovation executives polled in Dec. 2022 and Jan. 2023, BCG assessed a company’s performance on four dimensions:

• Global mindshare: the number of votes received from all global innovation executives

• Industry peer view: the number of votes received from executives in a company’s own industry

• Industry disruption: the Diversity Index (Herfindahl-Hirschman) of votes across industries

• Value creation: total shareholder return, including share buybacks, over the 3-year period from Jan. 2020 through Dec. 2022.

Visual Capitalists Marcus Lu and Athul Alexander provide a more visual representation of these results in the graphic below.

Data and Highlights

The 2023 ranking can be found in the table below.

For the fourth straight year, Apple is considered the most innovative company in the world. In fact, Apple has held this title every year since 2005 with the exception of 2019.

Rank	Company	Industry	Change in Rank (+ or -)
1	🇺🇸 Apple	Technology	–
2	🇺🇸 Tesla	Transportation & energy	+3
3	🇺🇸 Amazon	Technology	–
4	🇺🇸 Alphabet	Technology	–
5	🇺🇸 Microsoft	Technology	-3
6	🇺🇸 Moderna	Healthcare	+1
7	🇰🇷 Samsung	Technology	-1
8	🇨🇳 Huawei	Technology	–
9	🇨🇳 BYD Company	Transportation & energy	Returned
10	🇩🇪 Siemens	Technology	+10
11	🇺🇸 Pfizer	Healthcare	+7
12	🇺🇸 Johnson & Johnson	Healthcare	+15
13	🇺🇸 SpaceX	Transportation & energy	Returned
14	🇺🇸 Nvidia	Technology	+1
15	🇺🇸 ExxonMobil	Transportation & energy	Returned
16	🇺🇸 Meta	Technology	-5
17	🇺🇸 Nike	Consumer goods & services	-5
18	🇺🇸 IBM	Technology	-8
19	🇺🇸 3M	Consumer goods & services	+18
20	🇮🇳 Tata Group	Transportation & energy	Returned
21	🇨🇭 Roche	Healthcare	Returned
22	🇺🇸 Oracle	Technology	-3
23	🇩🇪 BioNTech	Healthcare	New
24	🇬🇧 Shell	Transportation & energy	Returned
25	🇫🇷 Schneider Electric	Transportation & energy	New
26	🇺🇸 P&G	Consumer goods & services	+8
27	🇨🇭 Nestlé	Consumer goods & services	+22
28	🇺🇸 General Electric	Transportation & energy	+1
29	🇨🇳 Xiaomi	Technology	+2
30	🇺🇸 Honeywell	Transportation & energy	New
31	🇯🇵 Sony	Technology	-22
32	🇨🇳 Sinopec	Transportation & energy	New
33	🇯🇵 Hitachi	Transportation & energy	+6
34	🇺🇸 McDonald’s	Consumer goods & services	Returned
35	🇺🇸 Merck	Healthcare	Returned
36	🇨🇳 ByteDance	Technology	–
37	🇩🇪 Bosch	Transportation & energy	-11
38	🇺🇸 Dell	Technology	-24
39	🇨🇭 Glencore	Transportation & energy	New
40	🇺🇸 Stripe	Technology	New
41	🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco	Transportation & energy	New
42	🇺🇸 Coca-Cola	Consumer goods & services	-6
43	🇩🇪 Mercedes-Benz Group	Transportation & energy	Returned
44	🇨🇳 Alibaba	Technology	-22
45	🇺🇸 Walmart	Consumer goods & services	-32
46	🇨🇳 PetroChina	Transportation & energy	New
47	🇯🇵 NTT	Telecommunications	New
48	🇨🇳 Lenovo	Technology	-24
49	🇩🇪 BMW	Transportation & energy	Returned
50	🇬🇧 Unilever	Consumer goods & services	–

BCG added additional context on several companies in its report, including Germany’s Bosch (37th). According to BCG, the engineering and technology company has a global R&D organization of 84,800 employees across 130 locations. Bosch has also maintained R&D spending (as a share of sales) at between 7.6% and 8.2% from 2018 through 2021.

Another highlight was Samsung (7th), which spent over $17 billion (9% of annual sales) on R&D in 2021, making the South Korean conglomerate one of the world’s largest spenders on innovation. Samsung was also granted 6,300 U.S. patents in 2022, the most out of any company.

As this ranking shows, innovative companies aren’t just tech companies. McDonald’s (34th) is considered by BCG as the “restaurant industry frontrunner in technology innovation and investment”.

For example, McDonald’s recently acquired Apprente, a startup that develops voice-based technologies, and Dynamic Yield, a firm specializing in creating customizable online experiences. McDonald’s aims to leverage these technologies to improve ordering times and offer customers better choices.

Companies by Nationality

Now let’s examine the ranking through a different lens—nationality. The following chart compares the country breakdowns of the 2013 and 2023 rankings.

The U.S. and China are the only two countries that have increased their share from 2013, pushing out firms from European countries like Germany, the UK, and Italy. We can also see significant declines in Japanese and South Korean representation.

Given China’s economic growth, it’s likely that Chinese firms will continue to represent more of BCG’s ranking in the future. So far, the country’s strongest innovator is Huawei (8th), which has made the top 50 list every year since 2014, when it debuted at 50th place.