The most innovative and technology companies in the world in 2023

Each year, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) publishes a ranking of the most innovative companies. Based on a December 2022 and January 2023 survey of more than 1,000 innovative company leaders, BCG assessed company performance in four dimensions:

• Global Mindshare : The number of votes received from all global innovation leaders.
• Industry Expert View : The number of votes received from executives in the company's own industry.
• Industry Relevance: Diversity Index (Herfindahl-Hirschman) of votes by industry.
• Value creation: total shareholder return, including share repurchases, over the 3-year period from January 2020 to December 2022.
  We have provided a more visual representation of these results in the chart above.

For the fourth year in a row, Apple has been named the most innovative company in the world. In fact, Apple has held this title every year since 2005, with the exception of 2019.

 BCG added additional information about several companies to its report, including Germany's Bosch (37th ). The engineering and technology company has a global research and development organization with 84,800 employees in 130 offices, according to BCG. Bosch is also maintaining R&D spending (as a share of sales) between 7.6% and 8.2% from 2018 to 2021.

Another highlight was Samsung (7th) , which spent more than $17 billion (9% of annual sales) on research and development in 2021, making the South Korean conglomerate one of the world's largest donors of innovation. Samsung also received 6,300 US patents in 2022, more than any other company.

As this ranking shows, innovative companies are not only technology companies. McDonald's (34th) is regarded by BCG as "the restaurant industry's leader in technology innovation and investment."

For example, McDonald's recently acquired Apprente , a voice technology startup, and Dynamic Yield , a firm that specializes in creating customized online experiences. McDonald's is committed to using these technologies to reduce lead times and offer customers a better choice.

Companies by nationality

Now let's look at the rating through another prism - nationality. The following chart compares the breakdown by country in the 2013 and 2023 rankings.

The US and China are the only two countries that have increased their share since 2013, crowding out firms from European countries such as Germany, the UK and Italy. We may also see a significant decline in the representation of Japan and South Korea.

Given China's economic growth, it is likely that Chinese firms will continue to represent the majority of the BCG ranking going forward. So far, the strongest innovator in the country is Huawei (8th) , which has been ranked in the top 50 every year since 2014 when it debuted at 50th.