List of the 1,500 Largest Companies North Rhine-Westphalia [2023]

Product Overview

Contains the 1,500 largest companies in North Rhine-Westphalia from numerous sectors such as industry, chemicals, trade, logistics, consumer goods, services, etc. The list is an excerpt from our list of the 5,000 largest companies in Germany.

Excellent level of detail: industry and field of activity, turnover (2015 - 2021) if publicly available, number of employees (2018 - 2021) if publicly available, general contact details, names of management, etc.

Suitable for bulk mailings: list contains columns for German formal salutation, title, first and last name of the management.

High-quality lists thanks to manual data maintenance by an experienced research team in Munich. Boutique research instead of unchecked crawler data.

List of the 5 largest companies in North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany’s most populous federal state and contributes a good 20 percent to Germany’s economic output - more than any other state. Companies of world renown have their headquarters on the Rhine and Ruhr. These are the five largest:

1. Deutsche Telekom AG, Bonn

Deutsche Telekom was created from Deutsche Bundespost TELEKOM in 1995 - the final step in the privatization of the former state-owned company. Today, Telekom is Europe’s largest telecommunications provider and is one of the TOP 100 listed companies worldwide. The group is divided into six divisions: Germany (Telekom Deutschland), Europe, T-Systems, USA (T-Mobile US), Group Development and GHS (Group Headquarters and Shared Services). Telekom operates fixed and mobile communications networks and offers telephony, Internet access and other digital services based on these networks. The Group has over 225,000 employees.

Update 2023: The topic of cyber security will play an even more important role in the future. At the beginning of 2023, the EU Commission announced that it would commission Deutsche Telekom to build a high-security communications network. Together with Airbus DS, Thales SIX, AIT and experts from science and industry, a highly secure system called EuroQCI is to be created based on quantum cryptography.

2. Deutsche Post AG, Bonn

Like Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Post emerged from the former Deutsche Bundespost in 1995. Since 2015, its external identity has been “Deutsche Post DHL Group”. The national postal business operates under the brands “Deutsche Post” (letter) and “DHL” (parcel). The international logistics business also operates under the “DHL” brand. The operating business is divided into the Post & Parcel Germany, DHL eCommerce Solutions, Express, Global Forwarding, Freight and Supply Chain divisions. Deutsche Post is a leading global logistics service provider with a good 570,000 employees.

3. Uniper SE, Düsseldorf

Uniper was formed in 2016 by spinning off its conventional power generation business from energy group E.ON. Since 2020, Uniper has been majority-owned by the Finnish energy company Fortum, in which the Finnish state has a stake of just over 50 percent. Uniper is one of Europe’s largest power producers with core markets in Germany, the Benelux countries, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. In Russia, Uniper operates five power plants and meets about five percent of Russia’s electricity needs. The company also participates in global energy trading and has nearly 12,000 employees.

4. Bayer AG, Leverkusen

Bayer was founded as early as 1863 in what is now Wuppertal, and since 1895 its headquarters have been located in Leverkusen, north of Cologne. Bayer is a major global chemical and pharmaceutical group. Its business comprises the three divisions Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Health and Crop Science - each organized in its own subsidiaries since 2002. A quantum leap in 2018 was the acquisition of the US seed and herbicide company Monsanto. This brought the active ingredient glyphosate into the group as a “legacy”. The Bayer Group has almost 100,000 employees and operates on a global scale.

5. thyssenkrupp AG, Essen

The merger of Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp with Thyssen AG in 1999 created thyssenkrupp AG - an industrial group organized into four divisions focusing on steel production and processing. The thyssenkrupp business is divided into the business areas Steel Europe, Material Services, Industrial Solutions and Components Technology. A planned merger with the Indian steel group Tata Steel did not materialize in 2019. The elevator business was sold in 2020. More than 100,000 employees still work at thyssenkrupp today. The company is Germany’s largest steel producer.