S&P 500 Firms' Foreign Sales Reach Lowest Level Since 2006

S&P Global Inc SPGI disclosed that S&P 500 companies sales reached the lowest levels last seen in 2006. This was based on the full reporting information available for the year 2015.

The rating agency quoted the foreign sales report of S&P 500 companies and said that the percentage of products and services produced or sold outside the U.S. equated to 44.3 percent in 2015. This represented a fall from 47.8 percent in the preceding year and the 46 percent average between the years 2009 and 2013. The company indicated that it was 43.6% in the year 2006.

On a geographical basis, S&P Global said that European sales continued to increase in the last year, with Europe enjoying the dominant force and accounted for 7.79 percent of all S&P 500 sales, which was higher than the 7.46 percent recorded in 2014 and 6.80 percent in 2013. The company added that following the fall in four straight years, sales in the Great Britain grew to 1.86 percent from 0.89 percent in 2014.

However, the trend in Asia was different where the sales reversed their course and witnessed a drop accounting for 6.77 percent of S&P 500 sales. This was down from 7.80 percent in 2014 and 7.71 percent in the preceding year.

Canadian sales decreased to 1.17% from 3.51% in 2014, partially due to declines in oil and commodity prices and less demand for the industry's related services and equipment.

African sales decreased to 3.16% from 4.09% in 2014 and 3.55% in 2013.

As far as the sector is concerned, S&P Global indicated that Energy accounted for 57.88 percent of its sales as foreign in 2015, which was higher than 56.23 percent in 2014. The IT sector witnessed a drop in exposure to 57.78 percent last year from 59.39 percent. However, it represented 21.9 percent of all foreign sales compared to 18.34 percent in 2014.

The rating agency indicated that both Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples posted lower foreign exposure of 37.43 percent and 34.95 percent respectively compared to 41.36 percent and 39.14 percent respectively in 2014.