EU industry concentration in 2021

Today Eurostat published an overview of industry concentration in the EU from 2018 to 2021 based on EuroGroups Register (ERG) data. Industry concentration measures the extent to which industry sales are dominated by one or more businesses. In this case, it focuses on employment concentration (as proxy for sales) at the 4 largest multinational enterprise groups by statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE).

The highest values of industry concentration in 2021 in the EU were recorded in the following NACE sections: electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (22.1% of employment concentrated in 4 largest enterprise groups), mining and quarrying (13.7%), water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (10.8%), transportation and storage (9.8%) and administrative and support services activities (5.4%).

In contrast, professional, scientific and technical activities (1.3%), real estate activities (1.5%) and accommodation and food service activities (1.6%) recorded the lowest levels of industry concentration in 2021.

Source dataset: Eurostat extraction

Eurostat has used the possibilities of the EuroGroups Register to produce experimental statistics to measure industry concentration by showing how multinational enterprise groups in the EU and European Free Trade Association operate. The data and the information on the structure of the groups takes into account the links between the enterprises of the same group, as they do not compete on a certain industry but rather increase the concentration level, working towards group level profit maximisation.