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11 August, 2001The vast majority of ICT enterprises are small or medium sized, but there are also very large, well-known companies like IBM, Compaq, Nokia, Sony, and Microsoft.
Some older industrial giants such as General Electric, Siemens, Philips, Matsushita, and NEC are also part of the ICT sector.
Then there is a host of companies like Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies, and Nortel Networks, that are not exactly household names, but have become important infrastructure providers for telecommunications and the Internet.
Finally, a whole new group of "contract manufacturers" -- companies that produced components and finished goods for major original equipment makers (OEMs) -- have appeared, including SCI Systems, Flextronics and Solectron. A number of OEMs now simply market many of the products (e.g. mobile telephones, computer peripherals) which are produced by "contract manufacturers".
A listing of the 50 largest companies involved in ICT, ranked by annual sales, and showing employment and market capitalization can be found below. Bear in mind that such lists reflect the companies' status at one point in time -- the financial year 2000 for almost all of the companies on the list -- which means that, in the fast-changing ICT industry, developments that occurred in 2001 are not reflected.