Le quatorze juillet seems a good moment to announce our new Top 30 Japanese companies in France.

The total number of employees covered by the 30 largest Japanese employers in France is 35,000 – lower than the totals employed by the Top 30 in Germany (56,000) and the UK (80,000) but the automotive sector is still dominant with nearly half of the Top 30 being automotive or having some automotive business.  Obviously some of the larger employee groups are related to manufacturing workforces – Toyota, JTEKT and NTN for example.

M&A’s have played a part too – NTN, a bearings company, acquired French company SNR Roulements (which was part of the Renault group) in 2006.  Toyota Tsusho acquired CFAO in 2012 – a trading company with over 10,000 employees in Africa.  Fast Retailing added French brands Princesse Tam Tam and Comptoir des Cotonniers to its retail group alongside Uniqlo.

As you might expect, food and drink companies also feature – Nippon Suisan acquired Cite Marine, and Suntory has its Orangina Schweppes brands based out of France. Ajinomoto is also headquartered in France for the region.

The other key sector is technology, particularly imaging – Canon, Ricoh,Toshiba, Konica Minolta, Olympus and Fujifilm.  Once again, each country’s historical comparative advantage is clear (cars, food, films for France, engineering for Germany and cars, finance and other services for the UK) showing how trade and integrated markets encourage specialisation.

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Last updated by Pernille Rudlin at 2021-10-13.