Trade wars and tariffs haven’t stopped companies from overseas cracking the American market. In fact, the US attracted $296.4 billion in foreign direct investment in 2018 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. While this may be lower than previous years, with foreign investment peaking in 2015 at $439.5 billion, America is one of the largest investment destinations in the world, and foreign businesses have retained a strong, and often long-standing, presence in the country. Click through to discover 21 foreign companies that Americans love. 

Originating in 1930s Japan, Canon brought its first model out in the US, the IVSB, in 1955. Since then, the company released its first electronic camera, the Electronic Eye, in 1961, selling 2.5 million models, followed by more sophisticated models, movie cameras, electronic calculators and photocopiers. Canon is currently in the top-five patent holders in the US, after being awarded 3,056 patents in 2018.

Founded just 11 years ago by Swedish duo Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, Spotify is currently the biggest paid-for streaming service in the world, with 108 Premium subscribers and a value of $27 billion at the time of writing. Launched in the US in 2011, it was overtaken by Apple Music for the highest number of American paid subscribers in April this year, although it still has more overall users.

How Spotify conquered the world but still hasn't made it pay yet

In 2018, Siemens USA reported revenue of $23.7 billion, which represents just over a quarter of the company’s global $93 billion (€83bn) revenue for 2018. Siemens’ first American subsidiary was established way back in 1892, although the company got off to a rocky start, with financial issues and cultural differences creating a rift between the Chicago factory and Berlin headquarters. The company really began to develop in the US after the Second World War, when it relaunched its business and expanded the product portfolio. Nowadays, the US is the company’s most important market.

Porsche cars are hugely popular in America and their popularity doesn’t seem to be waning: in 2018, the company’s US sales reached a record 57,202 units, an increase of 3.2% on the previous record from 2017. The German car company sold its first car there, the 356 Cabriolet, in 1952. Car dealer Max Hoffman was key to the rapid rise of the brand, as was the Porsche Club of America (PCA), whose 115,000 members create the largest single-brand club in the world.

HSBC is the world’s ninth-largest bank, with $147 billion of Tier 1 capital – the amount of money a bank has, which is often used as a measure of its strength – according to The Banker’s rankings for 2019. The company started out in the US by acquiring a 51%-stake in New-York based Marine Midland bank in 1980, extending to full ownership in 1987. Nowadays, HSBC has 229 branches in America and is planning to open another 50 more. It’s currently the 15th biggest bank in the US by total assets.

Automaker Honda started out in Japan in 1949, initially selling motorcycles. In that same year, its US arm was established in Los Angeles, and by a decade later it had sold one million motorcycles in the country. It introduced its first car model, the N600, in 1969, and in 1979 it launched the Honda Accord, which to this day is the best-selling passenger car in America. Currently, North America is the largest market for the car company by a long shot.

L’Oréal is the biggest cosmetics company worldwide with $30 billion in sales in 2018. The brand, which has been around since 1909, entered the US market in 1954 when it formed a licence with cosmetics and hair product company Cosmair Inc. This allowed L’Oréal to begin distributing its products in US beauty salons. It went on to acquire Cosmair in 1994, before buying Maybelline two years later. Currently, North America is L’Oréal’s third largest market after Western Europe and Asia Pacific (in terms of sales).

French insurance firm AXA traces its roots back to 1817, when it formed out of a merger between firms that managed agricultural risks in Normandy. But it wasn’t until 1991 that the American arm of the company was created – which is known as AXA Financial, Inc. – after AXA bought US insurance company The Equitable. The US made up 16% of the company’s $115 billion revenues (€102.9bn) in 2018, making it the company’s third-biggest market after Europe and France.

With revenue of $20 billion (€18.1bn) in 2018, Dutch multinational technology company Philips is a leading force in the electronics and healthcare industries. In 2006, in a huge bid to expand its consumer health business and expand its presence in America, it bought out the company Lifeline Systems in a deal valued at $750 million, which would be $957 million in today’s money. In 2007, Philips acquired the company XIMIS Inc. headquartered in El Paso, Texas, for its Medical Informatics Division. The US is the company’s biggest market by a long shot, accounting for $7 billion (€6.3bn) of sales in 2018; that's over a third of its sales.

Danish building block manufacturer LEGO started up in Billund, Denmark, and began making its iconic stackable toy bricks in 1949. Nowadays, it’s the third-largest toymaker in the US, by market share. In fact, in 2016, it was reported that LEGO bricks had become so popular with Americans that the company was struggling to keep up with demand.

Swiss giant Nestlé is the second-most powerful food and drinks company in the world, according to the 2018 Forbes Global 2000 ranking of the most influential public companies. It was founded in 1867 by Henri Nestlé, opening its first US factory in 1900. One of its top products is Nescafé, and an unbelievable 5,500 cups of Nescafé are consumed every second, with the company valued at $306 billion (market cap) at the time of writing. The soluble powdered coffee was first sold to Americans in the 1940s and became an American staple during the Second World War. Nowadays, the US is Nestlé’s biggest market.

Budget-friendly and forward-thinking, Swedish furniture giant IKEA came to America in 1985, opening its first store in a mall near Philadelphia. It was embraced early on by American shoppers for its low prices and chic designs, so much so that it had to close its doors to customers at one point because it ran out of merchandise. Currently, there are 50 IKEA stores in the US and it is the company’s second-biggest market.

Discover more about the brand and its owner, read Ingvar Kamprad: how IKEA's enigmatic founder became a billionaire and 30 IKEA facts that may surprise you

Well-known high street clothing brand H&M  is worth $34 billion (market cap) globally at the time of writing. The Sweden-based clothing retailer was founded in 1947, and prior to its US expansion, it had over 600 stores in Europe and a turnover of $3.9 billion. However, in 2000 it opened its first US stores, including a flagship store on Fifth Avenue, New York, before rapidly expanding across the nation. It’s currently the 58^th most valuable brand in the world, with 580 of its 4,972 stores located in the US.

Russian vodka brand Smirnoff, which is now owned by British drinks group Diageo, is the third-most popular branded spirit in the US. The brand was founded by Piotr Arseneevich Smirnov in Russia in 1864, and opened its first US distillery in 1933 after Prohibition ended. Initially it wasn’t very popular, as whisky was a more widely-enjoyed spirit in America. But in the 1950s, thanks to the popularity of the Moscow Mule cocktail, Smirnoff’s popularity spiked. Last year, 9.17 million 9-litre cases of Smirnoff were sold in the US according to Statista.

While it may not exactly be a household name, SAP is a market leader in enterprise application software, operating at the centre of today’s business and technology revolution. The company was set up in 1972 in Germany by five former IBM employees, and has seen its value leap to $167.9 billion according to its market cap at the time of writing, partly owing to its 2016 partnership with US giant Apple.

One of the world’s top appliance manufacturers, Chinese company Haier entered the US market in 1999. Although analysts shed doubt on the brand’s ability to attract American customers, due to the common conception that Americans weren’t keen on buying Chinese products, by 2002 its products were being sold in 9 out of the 10 top retail chains in the US. In 2017, Haier had a 17.3% share of the global refrigerator market, making it the global leader for 10 years, and it has more than 30% of the small-refrigerator market in the US.

Founded in Paris in 1854, fashion house Louis Vuitton first came to America in 1893 when it was shown at the Chicago World's Fair. In 1987, Louis Vuitton merged with champagne makers Moët et Chandon, and cognac brand Hennessy, to form the LVMH luxury goods conglomerate. A decade later, the fashion house hired Marc Jacobs as artistic director. Today, the US is Louis Vuitton's second-biggest market, bringing in 24% of the LVMH group’s total revenue in 2018.

Read about the rest of the world's most counterfeited brands

The largest car company in the world with $273.6 billion (JPN¥300trn) in revenues for the financial year of 2019, Japanese brand Toyota has proved popular in the US. The company started out as a loom-making business in Tokyo in the 1920s, before switching from fabric to cars after selling its loom patent in the 1930s. The Toyota Motor Company was officially established in 1937. Of the 10 million vehicles that Toyota produced last year, a massive 2.8 million were sold in North America.

Discover world-class products you didn't know were made in the US

Samsung currently has a 25% share of the US smartphone market, making it second only to Apple (42%) for the most popular brand. The South Korean electrical company started doing business in America in 1978, bringing out its first mobile phone in 1988. Last year, Samsung sold $213 billion worth of phones, tablets and related devices, and North America is its largest market.

Now see which iconic American products aren't made in the US

Accountancy firm Deloitte was founded in 1845 in London by a man named William Welch Deloitte. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the firm had a series of partnerships and mergers which drove its growth. The US office of Deloitte was opened in 1890, experiencing particularly strong growth during the two decades after the Second World War. In the financial year of 2019, the company had revenue of $46.2 billion, and the American arm of Deloitte was the fourth-largest private company in the US by revenue in 2018 according to Forbes.

German sportswear brand Adidas’ links to the US are long-standing. Founder Adi Dassler had been making shoes under the Dassler name since the 1920s and developed the first spiked running shoes which were worn by US sprinter Jessie Owens in 1936. After the Dassler factory in Germany was almost destroyed by US forces in the Second World War, American forces became major buyers of the shoes, and the company name Adidas was founded in 1949. Nowadays, Adidas is the second largest sportswear company worldwide after Nike and one-fifth of Adidas’ sales are in North America.

Now read about the foreign companies that failed to conquer America