Census Releases Report on Importing & Exporting Companies for 2009-10
The Census Bureau released its report entitled “Profile of U.S. Importing and Exporting Companies” for 2009-10, which provides a statistical analysis of imports and exports by company size, company type, state of origin and destination, industry, etc. Highlights of the report include:
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Top 250 account for 50% of exports, 60% if imports. Of the known export value for 2010, 59.6 percent was accounted for by the top 500 companies. The top 250 companies accounted for half of the known export value. For imports, 68.2 percent of the known value was accounted for by the top 500 companies and 60.3 percent of the total known import value was accounted for by the top 250 importers.
High concentration among manufacturing exporters. Among the company types, the top 50 manufacturers accounted for 42.6 percent of the known export value of the manufacturing sector. The top 50 companies represented 36.4 percent of the known export value for wholesalers and 37.1 percent of the known value for “other companies”1.
Related party trade higher w/ multiple locations. Trade with related parties accounted for 35.6 percent of the known export value by multiple location companies compared to 16.7 percent by single location companies.
SMEs account for 98% of exporters but 34% of exports. Small- and medium-sized companies (those employing fewer than 500 workers, including number of employees unknown) comprised 97.8 percent of all identified exporters and 97.2 percent of all identified importers. They account for 33.7 percent and 31.6 percent of the known export and import value, respectively.
Most transacted with one foreign country. Most identified companies exported to (58.4 percent) or imported from (60.5 percent) only one foreign country. A small percentage of exporters, 0.4 percent, shipped to 50 or more countries; these companies accounted for 47.8 percent of the known export value. Less than 0.1 percent of importing companies imported from 50 or more countries, accounting for 19.0 percent of the known import value.
1The “other companies” category includes manufacturers of prepackaged software and books; brokers or freight forwarders and other transportation and warehousing firms, which often act as agents for the true exporter; business, engineering, and management services; oil and gas extraction companies; coal mining companies; and communication services companies.
Full Census Bureau report available here.