U.S. Census Bureau News U.S. Department of Commerce Washington, D.C. 20230 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 8:30 A.M. EST WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2007 CB-07-05 For information contact: (301) 763-3629 Kristen S. Corwin, Jeffrey McHugh, or Christopher Farmer A Profile of U.S. Exporting Companies, 2004 - 2005 The U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce, releases the report, A Profile of U.S. Exporting Companies, 2004 - 2005, on January 10, 2007. This report shows the known export value for 2005 increased by 10 percent and the number of identified exporters increased by almost 3 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau previously released a Highlights summary to provide a brief overview of the report A Profile of U.S. Exporting Companies. Starting with the 2004-2005 report the Highlights summary has been discontinued. In 2005 a category of U.S. companies called "identified U.S. exporters" accounted for $785 billion in exports or almost 87 percent of the total value of exported goods ($906 billion). Identified U.S. exporters are defined as companies that can be linked to export transactions. In 2005 the number of identified U.S. exporters was 239.1 thousand, up from the revised 2004 estimate of 232.8 thousand. Because not all export shipments can be linked to specific companies, the number of exporters may be understated. Approximately 13 percent of the 2004 and 2005 total export value could not be linked to specific companies. This portion of the total export value includes individuals, governments, low-value estimates, and documentation filed with missing, unknown, or incomplete company identifiers. Export values are taken from detailed export documentation used to compile the official U.S. trade statistics. Company size and type information are taken from administrative records and census or survey data on file with the Census Bureau. The pie chart on the previous page shows the distribution of known exports by company type in 2005. Manufacturers accounted for almost two-thirds of the known export value with 28 percent of the identified exporters. The overall findings for 2005 and revised findings for 2004 are shown in Table 1, which shows the proportion of exports that were successfully matched to specific companies in the 2005 Business Register. The 2004 figures in this report are revised from data released in the 2003-2004 exporter profile. The revisions are based on the ability to match additional records. Who Exports? During 2005, less than 12 percent (26.8 thousand) of all identified exporters were multiple location companies; these companies accounted for almost 80 percent of the known export value (Exhibit 1a). In contrast, (212.3 thousand) single location companies, making up 88 percent of the exporting companies, contributed 20 percent of the known export value. Trade with related parties accounted for 38 percent of the known export value by multiple location companies compared to 15 percent by single location companies (Exhibit 3a). Exhibit 1a shows that manufacturers accounted for the largest portion of the 2005 known value, almost 65 percent. "Other companies" and wholesalers accounted for over 13 percent and almost 22 percent, respectively; unclassified exporters accounted for the remainder. The "other companies" category includes manufacturers of prepackaged software and books; 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. The number of multiple location companies decreased by over 2 percent in 2005. All company types decreased except for wholesalers (1 percent increase); manufacturers decreased by 1 percent, "other companies" by 5 percent, and unclassified companies by 61 percent. The number of multiple location companies with the "no. of employees unknown" increased by 28 percent in 2005; their manufacturers increased by 20 percent, wholesalers by 41 percent, and "other companies" by 22 percent. The 2005 Export Concentration by Top Companies shows the export concentration by percent of known export value. Of the known export value for 2005, 61 percent was accounted for by the top 500 companies. Over half of the total known export value was accounted for by the top 250 exporters. The top 100 manufacturers contributed over one-third of the total known export value and over one-half of all exports by manufacturers. Large-Sized Exporters Large identified exporting companies (those employing 500 or more workers) were responsible for almost 71 percent of the known export value, and they represented almost 3 percent of all identified exporters (Exhibit 1a). Large companies also dominated manufacturers' exports, with 4 percent of manufacturing exporters accounting for almost 85 percent of manufacturing export value. Similarly, large wholesalers, who comprise less than 1 percent of the wholesalers who export, accounted for almost 46 percent of the value of known exports by wholesalers. Large companies in the "other" category represented over 3 percent of the identified exporters and over 48 percent of the known value in the "other" category. Roughly 42 percent of large manufacturers' export value was to related parties (Exhibit 3a). Among the company types, the top 50 manufacturers accounted for almost 43 percent of the known export value of the manufacturing sector. The top 50 firms represented over 37 percent of the known export value for wholesalers and about 36 percent of the known value for "other companies" (Exhibit 2a). Small- and Medium-Sized Exporters Small- and medium-sized exporters (those employing fewer than 500 workers, including number of employees unknown) comprised over 97 percent of all identified exporters and accounted for 29 percent of the known export value. The following findings were extracted from Exhibit 1a: Nearly 96 percent of manufacturing exporters were small- or medium-sized companies; they contributed almost 16 percent of the sector's $506 billion in exports. 99 percent of wholesalers were small- or medium-sized companies; they attained 54 percent of the sector's $171 billion in exports. Almost 97 percent of "other companies" were small- or medium-sized companies; they represented almost 52 percent of the sector's $105 billion in exports. Export Markets Compared with earlier Profiles, the 2005 Profile revised the country groups shown in Exhibits 5a, 5b, and 5c. Three countries were added to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN): Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. The country groups Europe, Euro Area, Africa, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) were added, while Western Europe, European Free Trade Association, Eastern Europe, and Former Soviet Republics have been removed. Most identified exporting companies (58 percent) traded with only one foreign country. A small percentage of companies, 0.4 percent, shipped to 50 or more countries; these companies accounted for almost half (49 percent) of the known export value (Exhibit 4a). In 2005, about 84 percent of all companies exported to at least one of the top 25 U.S. trading partners. The largest number of companies shipped to Canada, followed by Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. The order of the top 5 countries for U.S. exporters did not change from 2004 to 2005 (Exhibit 5a). Exports by State The Census Bureau releases data on exports by state based on the origin of movement (OM). The OM data series is based on where the goods began their movement to the port of exit as reported on the export document. Exhibit 6 shows the number of companies exporting from each state during 2004 and 2005 based upon the OM definition. (Note that the same company can be shown as exporting from multiple states.) In 2005, the top five states, based on the number of identified exporting companies, were California, Florida, New York, Texas, and Illinois. Exporters in these five states represented 41 percent of the total known export value. States recording the largest increases in known export value in 2005 were Hawaii (192 percent), Kansas (36 percent) Montana (35 percent), Oklahoma (35 percent) and Nevada (34 percent). Comparison of 2004 and 2005 Results The relative proportions of exports accounted for by manufacturers, wholesalers, and "other companies" based upon both number of exporters and value of exports remained consistent from 2004 to 2005. Below are a number of noteworthy year-to-year changes (Exhibits 1c and 5c): The number of identified exporting companies increased by 6,266 or almost 3 percent. The single location companies increased by 6,915 and the multiple location companies decreased by 649. The number of small- and medium-sized companies increased by almost 3 percent from 226.2 thousand in 2004 to 232.6 thousand in 2005, while the number of large companies decreased by over 2 percent from 6,628 to 6,482. The number of wholesalers increased by over 3 percent from 77.3 thousand in 2004 to 79.9 thousand in 2005. Additionally, the number of manufacturers increased by less than 1 percent from 67.1 thousand in 2004 to 67.4 thousand in 2005. Among the top 25 U.S. trading partners, China (12 percent), India (12 percent), and Brazil (11 percent) showed the largest percentage increases in the number of identified exporting companies. Taiwan (-4 percent) and Japan (-3 percent) showed the largest declines in the number of exporters from 2004. Some portion of these changes may reflect changes in the match rate rather than an actual change in the number of exporters. During the process of identifying individual companies, it was not possible to investigate every unmatched case. Priority was given to identifying unmatched companies having high values of trade. As a result, the information on small exporters is most likely understated. Also, users should not assume that the unidentified exporters reflected the same distribution of company types and sizes as the identified (known) exporters. Comparisons between the number of companies exporting in given categories or different years might be somewhat misleading due to differences in the percent of value we were able to match to specific companies. In addition, the almost 11 percent increase in total export value from $819 billion in 2004 to $906 billion in 2005 had an uncertain effect on the match rate. Copies of the exporter profiles are available by calling (301)763-2227 or at http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/aip/index.html#profile TABLE OF CONTENTS Exhibit 1a. 2005 Exports by Company Type and Employment Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Exhibit 1b. 2004 Exports by Company Type and Employment Size.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Exhibit 1c. Percent Change Between the 2004 and 2005 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Exhibit 2a. Top Companies' Share of the 2005 Export Market by Company Type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Exhibit 2b. Top Companies' Share of the 2004 Export Market by Company Type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Exhibit 3a. 2005 Exports to Related Parties by Company Type and Employment Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Exhibit 3b. 2004 Exports to Related Parties by Company Type and Employment Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Exhibit 4a. 2005 Exports by Company Type and Employment Size to Number of Partner Countries. . . . . . . . . . . .18 Exhibit 4b. 2004 Exports by Company Type and Employment Size to Number of Partner Countries. . . . . . . . . . . .19 Exhibit 5a. 2005 Exports by Company Employment Size to World Areas and Selected Countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Exhibit 5b. 2004 Exports by Company Employment Size to World Areas and Selected Countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Exhibit 5c. Percent Change Between 2004 and 2005 Exports to World Areas and Selected Countries. . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Exhibit 6a. 2005 Exports by State of the Origin of Movement, Number of Exporting Companies, Value, and Percent Change Between the 2004 and 2005 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Exhibit 6b. 2004 Exports by State of the Origin of Movement, Number of Exporting Companies, and Value. . . . . . . . . 26 Technical Documentation This section contains critical information on sources and reliability of data, as well as definitions of terms and methodological procedures that users should consider before attempting to interpret or analyze the statistical data presented in this report. Failure to do so may affect the results. Table 1: Distribution of Exports by Identified and Unidentified Exporters (Value in millions of dollars. Details may not sum to total due to rounding.) 2005 Export Value % of 2005 Value 2004 Export Value % of 2004 Value Total exports 905,978 100.0 818,775 100.0 Low-value estimates 20,538 2.2 18,286 2.2 US & foreign governments 1,963 0.2 2,620 0.3 Revisions 1,598 0.2 839 0.1 Identified exporters* (known value) 784,536 86.6 713,157 87.1 Exported merchandise in both 2004 and 2005 761,283 84.0 694,405 84.8 Exported merchandise in only 2004 or only 2005 23,252 2.6 18,751 2.3 Unidentified exports 97,343 10.7 83,873 10.2 *Number of Identified Exporters 2005 2004 Exported in Both Years Exported in 2005 Only Exported in 2004 Only 239,094 232,828 155,039 84,055 77,789 Note: Percentages may not add up to 100.0 percent due to rounding.