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 analyst A financial analyst is a professional undertaking financial analysis for external or internal clients as a core feature of the job. Economic activities Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyse ...

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 Economy, economies into three Economic sector, sectors of activity: extraction of raw materials (Primary sector of the economy, primary), manufacturing (Secondary sector of the economy, secondary), ...

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 ...

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Work ...

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

tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...

(services). Some authors add

quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

(knowledge) or even

quinary Quinary (base 5 or pental) is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five digits on either hand. In the quinary place system, five numerals, from 0 to 4, are used to represent any ...

(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 Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the ...

chemical industry The chemical industry comprises the companies and other organizations that develop and produce industrial, specialty and other chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, the chemical industry converts raw materials ( oil, natural gas, air, ...

petroleum industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry, includes the global processes of hydrocarbon exploration, exploration, extraction of petroleum, extraction, oil refinery, refining, Petroleum transport, transportation (often by oil tankers ...

automotive industry The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, selling, Maintenance, repairing, and Custom car, modification of motor ve ...

, 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 generally n ...

hospitality industry The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and beverage services, event planning, theme parks, travel agency, tourism, hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, and bars. Sector ...

food industry The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, ...

fish industry The fishing industry includes any industry or activity that takes, cultures, processes, preserves, stores, transports, markets or sells fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including recreational, subsi ...

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, ...

paper industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process In the manufacturing process, pulp is intro ...

entertainment industry Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...

semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. Its roots can be traced to the invention of the transistor ...

cultural industry The term culture industry () 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 as Mass Deception", o ...

, 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-t ...

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 *Marketing, the act of sat ...

-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, 25 industry groups, 74 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 ICB ...

(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 Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

and

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...

List of classifications

A wide variety of

taxonomies image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

is in use, sponsored by different organizations and based on different criteria.

List of classifications

See also

References

Further reading