Latest Standing: World's 100 Most Innovative Companies

 Innovation rankings shouldn’t be a popularity contest with editors throwing darts at the wall. Our method relies on investors’ educated hunches as to which firms will continue to create profitable new growth. This is captured in an Innovation Premium (IP), the difference between a firm’s enterprise value and a net present value of cash flows from its existing businesses (based on analysis from Finstra Consulting in collaboration with Innovators DNA and using data and a proprietary valuation model from Holt, a division of Credit Suisse). This year’s list is a diverse stew of luxury goods, retailers, food staples, engineering and IT services. One-quarter of the companies are from Asia, but the US dominates the list. Companies need seven years of public financial data (and $10 billion in market cap) to make the list, which is why some obvious candidates such as Facebook and Tesla Motors are not on it this year. Spoiler alert: Tesla will likely be number one next year (its IP is 80 percent) unless it really falls of a cliff over the next five months. We require a threshold of R&D spending so banks don’t make the cut. Nor do energy and mining firms, whose market value is tied more to commodity prices than to innovation. One big caveat is that our method does not correlate with subsequent investor returns because today’s value already incorporates these expected improvements in financial performance.

Rank	Company	Country	12-Month Sales Growth (%)	5-Year Annualized Total Return (%)	Innovation Premium* (%)
1	Salesforce.com	United States	35.6	24.1	75.9
2	Alexion Pharmaceuticals	United States	46.7	46.2	71.4
3	ARM Holdings	United Kingdom	14.8	37.7	65.6
4	Unilever Indonesia	Indonesia	12.0	26.6	65.1
5	Regeneron Pharmaceuticals	United States	43.6	67.0	64.7
6	Amazon.com	United States	22.3	19.5	62.4
7	BioMarin Pharmaceutical	United States	20.2	25.7	58.9
8	CP All	Thailand	71.6	33.7	57.8
9	VMware	United States	15.0	17.6	57.6
10	Aspen Pharmacare Holdings	South Africa	-	31.3	57.1
11	Vertex Pharmaceuticals	United States	-36.6	18.0	56.8
12	Red Hat	United States	15.8	12.1	56.4
13	Hermès International	France	-	24.7	55.7
14	Hindustan Unilever	India	8.2	21.4	54.7
15	Monster Beverage	United States	10.6	29.8	54.1
16	The Priceline Group	United States	28.9	41.0	52.5
17	Rakuten	Japan	14.6	14.0	51.9
18	Marriott International	United States	2.1	21.9	51.7
19	Fastenal	United States	8.9	20.6	50.9
20	Chipotle Mexican Grill	United States	23.2	46.8	50.5
21	Stericycle	United States	14.3	16.6	50.1
22	Cerner	United States	13.9	20.0	49.6
23	Coloplast	Denmark	5.5	40.8	49.6
24	Henan Shuanghui Investment	China	11.0	5.4	49.6
25	Tingyi Holding	China	11.5	3.8	48.6
26	Hengan International Group	China	-	9.9	48.2
27	AmBev	Brazil	9.8	21.6	47.9
28	Express Scripts	United States	-	9.4	47.8
29	Iliad	France	-	20.6	47.3
30	Netflix	United States	24.0	51.4	47.2
31	Baidu	China	23.7	35.1	46.5
32	MasterCard	United States	13.7	24.5	46.2
33	Starbucks	United States	11.0	29.4	45.6
34	Whole Foods Market	United States	8.3	23.5	45.6
35	Fanuc	Japan	8.8	16.8	44.1
36	Illumina	United States	26.8	41.5	43.7
37	Tencent Holdings	China	40.4	27.3	43.1
38	Novozymes	Denmark	5.2	21.5	43.1
39	SBA Communications	United States	19.4	25.0	43.0
40	Unicharm	Japan	25.4	16.9	42.6
41	Li & Fung	Hong Kong	-	-5.6	42.6
42	Kone	Finland	6.2	20.4	42.4
43	Intuitive Surgical	United States	-12.2	4.8	42.4
44	Keurig Green Mountain	United States	7.1	35.1	42.3
45	Perrigo	Ireland	13.9	30.3	42.3
46	Fast Retailing	Japan	25.6	15.2	42.1
47	Reckitt Benckiser Group	United Kingdom	-1.7	11.7	40.6
48	Brown-Forman	United States	5.0	25.0	40.6
49	Essilor International	France	-	13.9	40.6
50	Bureau Veritas Registre International de Classific	France	-	19.7	40.6
51	Luxottica Group	Italy	0.5	20.0	40.5
52	Beiersdorf	Germany	1.2	9.9	40.4
53	Naver	South Korea	-2.0	23.7	40.1
54	Estée Lauder Cos	United States	6.2	26.5	40.0
55	Keyence	Japan	24.5	20.2	39.7
56	Dassault Systemes	France	2.3	20.1	39.6
57	Tata Consultancy Services	India	30.0	27.7	39.6
58	Larsen & Toubro	India	13.3	9.4	39.4
59	Dairy Farm International Holdings	Hong Kong	6.4	14.1	39.4
60	Capita	United Kingdom	15.2	11.4	39.1
61	Geberit	Switzerland	6.0	14.0	38.9
62	Jeronimo Martins	Portugal	7.2	12.5	38.9
63	Falabella	Chile	14.5	12.2	38.8
64	Grifols	Spain	10.7	26.6	38.7
65	Sun Pharma Industries	India	42.4	37.8	38.3
66	Starwood Hotels	United States	-2.4	19.9	37.8
67	Diageo	United Kingdom	-	14.3	37.3
68	Roper Industries	United States	11.6	23.1	37.1
69	Pernod Ricard	France	-	9.5	37.0
70	Lindt & Sprungli	Switzerland	-	17.2	36.9
71	AmerisourceBergen	United States	34.9	24.2	36.5
72	Coca-Cola	United States	-3.0	11.2	35.8
73	SGS	Switzerland	-0.1	13.2	35.8
74	H&M	Sweden	14.2	11.4	35.8
75	Oriental Land	Japan	13.4	25.4	35.5
76	Paychex	United States	8.3	10.5	35.0
77	Colgate-Palmolive	United States	0.9	13.6	34.9
78	Ecolab	United States	13.6	21.1	34.8
79	Anheuser-Busch InBev	Belgium	9.3	19.2	34.6
80	Hershey	United States	6.2	24.5	34.3
81	Autodesk	United States	0.3	16.9	33.9
82	Inditex	Spain	4.7	23.4	33.7
83	Grupo Bimbo	Mexico	2.5	14.0	33.7
84	Procter & Gamble	United States	0.0	9.3	33.7
85	Yahoo Japan	Japan	10.1	11.5	33.7
86	Danone	France	-3.4	7.8	33.6
87	ST Engineering	Singapore	4.0	7.7	33.6
88	Inner Mongolia Yili	China	13.2	21.2	33.5
89	Sodexo	France	-2.2	16.8	33.2
90	Kuehne + Nagel	Switzerland	-1.6	6.4	33.2
91	General Mills	United States	0.8	11.7	33.1
92	BRF	Brazil	2.5	20.8	33.0
93	Assa Abloy	Sweden	10.1	22.6	32.8
94	Nidec	Japan	21.9	10.0	32.5
95	Walmex - Wal-Mart de Mexico	Mexico	1.9	4.2	32.4
96	Bajaj Auto	India	-	22.7	31.7
97	Experian	Ireland	1.8	14.1	31.6
98	Clorox	United States	-0.6	12.3	31.5
99	Sherwin-Williams	United States	10.4	28.5	31.4
100	Digi.Com Berhad	Malaysia	5.9	27.4	31.3

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