Industry classification or industry taxonomy is a type of

economic taxonomy An economic taxonomy is a system of classification of economic activity, including products, companies and industries. Some economists believe that the study of economic policy demands the use of a taxonomic/classificatory approach. Industry taxon ...

that classifies companies, organizations and traders into industrial groupings based on similar production processes, similar products, or similar behavior in financial markets. National and international statistical agencies use various industry-classification schemes to summarize economic conditions. Securities analysts use such groupings to track common forces acting on groups of companies, to compare companies' performance to that of their peers, and to construct either specialized or diversified portfolios.

Sectors and industries

Economic activities can be classified in a variety of ways. At the top level, they are often classified according to the

three-sector theory The three-sector model in economics divides economies into three sectors of activity: extraction of raw materials (primary), manufacturing (secondary), and service industries which exist to facilitate the transport, distribution and sale o ...

into

sectors Sector may refer to: Places * Sector, West Virginia, U.S. Geometry * Circular sector, the portion of a disc enclosed by two radii and a circular arc * Hyperbolic sector, a region enclosed by two radii and a hyperbolic arc * Spherical sector, a p ...

: primary (extraction and agriculture), secondary (manufacturing), and

tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

(services). Some authors add quaternary (knowledge) or even

quinary Quinary (base-5 or pental) is a numeral system with 5 (number), five as the radix, base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five finger, digits on either hand. In the quinary place system, five numerals, from 0 (number) ...

(culture and research) sectors. Over time, the fraction of a society's activities within each sector changes. Below the economic sectors are more detailed classifications. They commonly divide economic activities into industries according to similar functions and markets and identify businesses producing related products. Industries can also be identified by product, such as: construction industry, chemical industry,

petroleum industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The large ...

automotive industry The automotive industry comprises a wide range of companies and organizations involved in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industries by revenue (from 16 % such ...

, electronic industry,

power engineering Power engineering, also called power systems engineering, is a subfield of electrical engineering that deals with the generation, transmission, distribution, and utilization of electric power, and the electrical apparatus connected to such sy ...

and power manufacturing (such as gas or wind turbines),

meatpacking industry The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is general ...

hospitality industry The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and drink service, event planning, theme parks, travel and tourism. It includes hotels, tourism agencies, restaurants and bars. Sect ...

, food industry,

fish industry The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including ...

software industry The software industry includes businesses for development, maintenance and publication of software that are using different business models, mainly either "license/maintenance based" (on-premises) or "Cloud based" (such as SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, MBa ...

paper industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process The pulp is fed to a paper machine where it is formed as a paper web a ...

, entertainment industry, semiconductor industry,

cultural industry The term culture industry (german: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment ...

, and

poverty industry The terms poverty industry or poverty business refer to a wide range of money-making activities that attract a large portion of their business from the poor. Businesses in the poverty industry often include payday loan centers, pawnshops, rent-to ...

Market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

-based classification systems such as the

Global Industry Classification Standard The Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) is an industry taxonomy developed in 1999 by MSCI and Standard & Poor's (S&P) for use by the global financial community. The GICS structure consists of 11 sectors, 24 industry groups, 69 industrie ...

(GICS), the

Industry Classification Benchmark The Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) is an industry classification taxonomy launched by Dow Jones and FTSE in 2005 and now used by FTSE International and STOXX. It is used to segregate markets into sectors within the macroeconomy. The I ...

(ICB) and

The Refinitiv Business Classification The Refinitiv Business Classification (TRBC) is an industry classification of global companies. It was developed by the Reuters Group under the name Reuters Business Sector Scheme (RBSS), was rebranded to Thomson Reuters Business Classification ( ...

(TRBC) are used in finance and

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mar ...

List of classifications

A wide variety of taxonomies is in use, sponsored by different organizations and based on different criteria. ¹The NAICS Index File lists 19745 rubrics beyond the 6 digits which are not assigned codes.

Sectors and industries

List of classifications

See also

References

Further reading