Largest companies in Italy, and where the B2B market really is

Who are the largest companies in Italy?

The top of the Italian economy looks like any other large European country. Eni leads the industrial turnover rankings with €88.8 billion in 2024, followed by Enel and GSE, the state owned energy services company. Intesa Sanpaolo is the largest bank. The familiar names fill out the rest of the list: Stellantis in automotive, Generali in insurance, UniCredit in banking, Leonardo in aerospace and defence, Ferrari, Prada and EssilorLuxottica in the brands the rest of the world associates with Italy.

Source: 9colonne, industrial turnover rankings · Wikipedia, list of largest Italian companies (2024 results)

Twenty six Italian companies appear in the Fortune 500 Europe. That is the number worth remembering, because it is the real size of the "big company" layer: a few dozen groups, most of them in energy, finance, automotive and luxury. If your Italian plan is a list of these names, your plan has twenty six rows and a very long waiting time.

Source: Fortune Italia, Fortune 500 Europe

How many large companies does Italy actually have?

Fewer than most foreign sellers expect. The Atlas of Italian companies, our open dataset built on Chamber of Commerce records, maps 1,067,441 active corporations across 28 supply chains, out of a universe of 1,498,035. Of those, 6,995 declare revenue above €50 million and another 27,270 sit between €10 and €50 million. Counted by headcount, 4,276 companies employ 250 people or more and 25,285 employ between 50 and 249.

Put differently: the companies that behave like a "large account", with a purchasing department, a vendor list and a formal tender, are a few thousand. Everyone else, from the €15 million machinery maker in Brescia to the €800,000 software house in Padua, is a company where the person who signs is the person who owns it.

Source: Atlas of Italian companies, Clientium, edition 2026 (CC BY 4.0, Chamber of Commerce data, July 2026). The two columns are counted independently: a company appears in one revenue band and one employee band.

Widen the lens from corporations to all businesses, including sole traders and partnerships, and the picture gets even flatter: about 95% of Italian businesses have fewer than 10 employees. The large groups are the roof of the building. The building is small and medium sized companies.

Source: ISTAT data via partitaiva.it

Which sectors hold the biggest Italian companies?

Size clusters by supply chain. Pharmaceuticals is the outlier: only 542 corporations, but a median revenue of €11.9 million, the highest in the Atlas. Chemicals follow with 4,162 companies and a €2.0 million median, then rubber and plastics (7,166 companies, €1.85 million), electrical equipment (5,946, €1.18 million) and mechanical engineering and metal products (70,800, €1.02 million). Those five chains are where a mid sized Italian company is most likely to have real budgets and a structured buying process.

Aggregate revenue tells a different story. B2B wholesale is the largest chain by total declared revenue at €654.7 billion, followed by mechanical engineering (€358.8 billion), energy, water and environment (€284.1 billion), food and beverages (€249.4 billion) and construction (€246.7 billion). Wholesale is where a foreign manufacturer finds the distributors and importers who already serve the fragmented base; mechanical engineering is where Italy's industrial reputation is built, one family owned company at a time.

Source: Atlas of Italian companies, Clientium, edition 2026. Full counts by sector are in the guide to how many companies are in Italy.

Why do the largest companies not equal the market?

Because they are already served, and served by companies like yours. ISTAT counts 18,825 foreign controlled firms in Italy: 0.4% of resident enterprises, yet 21.0% of turnover in industry and services and 9.8% of workers. The multinationals that entered Italy before you went straight to the top and stayed there. A foreign supplier pitching Eni or Stellantis today competes with every other foreign supplier that had the same idea, plus the incumbents on the vendor list.

Source: ISTAT, structure and competitiveness of multinational enterprises, year 2023

The middle, by contrast, is thinly covered. A €20 million component maker in the Veneto rarely hears from foreign suppliers at all, because nobody has mapped it, nobody writes to its owner in Italian and nobody follows up. That is the gap where most foreign entrants win their first customers, and it is why the entry plan should start from how many such companies exist in your sector, not from a ranking of the famous ones.

How do you sell to a large Italian group?

Slowly, through the front door. Large groups buy through procurement, tenders and vendor qualification. You will need an Italian legal entity or a local partner that can invoice and provide after sales service, a compliance file, often an ESG questionnaire, and a sponsor inside the business unit who wants your product enough to push it through purchasing. The U.S. Commercial Service warns that in Italy relationships take two to three times longer than expected to form; a market entry consultancy puts Italian sales cycles 20 to 30% longer than in Northern Europe. For a large account, plan in quarters, not weeks.

Source: U.S. Commercial Service, Italy Country Commercial Guide, 2026 · Altios, Market Entry in Italy, May 2026

It can be worth it: one group contract can carry an Italian subsidiary for years. But it is a poor first move for a company that still has to prove there is Italian demand at all. Most large accounts also ask the question you cannot yet answer: which Italian customers do you already have?

How do you sell to owner run Italian companies?

Directly, to the person who owns it. In a €3 million to €50 million Italian corporation the buyer is usually the titolare, the founder or second generation owner, or the amministratore delegato they trust. There is no vendor list to join; there is a person who reads Italian, decides alone, and wants to know why you are writing to him this week. Decisions come faster than in a group, but only after the owner has decided you are serious, which in Italy happens through conversation, not through a brochure. Our guide on who decides in an Italian companycovers the roles in detail.

The two routes are not exclusive. The usual order for a foreign entrant is the reverse of the instinct: win a dozen owner run customers first, build the Italian references, then approach the groups with proof that Italian companies already buy from you. Culture matters on both routes; theguide to Italian business culture for B2B sellersexplains how the first meeting actually goes.

How do you check whether an Italian company is really large?

Do not trust the website. Italian companies file annual accounts with the Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Register makes revenue, employees, legal form and ownership available for every corporation. A company that presents itself as a group may be a €4 million Srl; a modest site may hide a €60 million exporter. Before investing in a large account strategy, verify the size band of each target. Theguide to checking an Italian company in the Business Registershows where to look and what the documents mean.

Where does Clientium fit?

We work in the owner run middle, which is where the Atlas says the market is. For foreign companies entering Italy we map how many corporations in your sector and size band exist, write to their decision makers one to one in Italian, and book appointments that show up: 6,000+ appointments for 127+ client companies, with an 87% show rate against a market average of about 60%. You pay for appointments that are held and in target, not for activity. If your plan requires a seat at Eni's procurement table, we will tell you so in the mapping session and point you to the right route. The full picture for foreign entrants is on theenter the Italian market page.