Emerging Stars

Though Western investors have been pouring billions of dollars into emerging markets for some 20 years, most still think of the success stories in terms of countries—plays on the rise of China or oil in Russia—not companies. It is long past time, however, to start naming corporate names. So, at newsweek's request, Antoine van Agtmael, who coined the term "emerging markets" in 1981 and runs the $25 billion Emerging Markets Management Fund, winnowed down the roster of new multinationals from his recent book "The Emerging Markets Century" (Free Press, 2007). Here's the killer class of 10 from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan.

1. Samsung Electronics - South Korea
The premier emerging market brand is already better known than Sony, with an R&D budget larger than Intel's and number one global market shares in memory chips and flat screens.
      
2.  Hyundai Motor -  South Korea
Known less than a decade ago as the butt of Jay Leno's jokes on "The Tonight Show," Hyundai last year passed Toyota in the J.D. Power car quality survey. Now it is a global producer, with plants in the United States, China, India and Korea.
      
3.  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) - Taiwan
The largest independent fabricator of wafers for logic semiconductors, TSMC's plants are state-of-the-art with the lowest break-even operating level in its industry.
      
4. Hon Hai -Taiwan
Still largely unknown, Hon Hai is the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer with most of its huge factories in China. Hidden behind a veil of anonymity, and with rapidly growing earnings, it makes laptops for Dell, Playstations for Sony, handsets for Nokia,  iPods for Apple and numerous other everyday electronics.
      
5. Lenovo -China
The largest computer brand in the fast-growing Chinese market, Lenovo gained the spotlight two years ago after its daring purchase of IBM's PC division, making it into the number three global PC producer after Dell and HP.
      
6. Infosys - India
Infosys is a leading player in the global IT outsourcing trend, leveraging the huge pool of cheap brainpower coming out of India's elite technology institutes.
      
7. Cemex - Mexico
Originally based in Mexico, it is now the world's third-largest cement producer (and largest in the U.S.) after a string of acquisitions around the world with ambitions to become even bigger.      

8. CVRD - Brazil
Privatization and a surge in demand for iron ore from China's expansion of steel production turned a once sleepy iron ore company into a global mining giant with interests in manganese, nickel and copper. It just took over Inco in Canada.

9. Embraer -  Brazil
The world's fourth largest airplane-maker, Embraer beat out European, Canadian, and Japanese rivals with two successive, popular series of regional jets.
      
10. Grupo Modelo - Mexico
This maker of Corona and other beers has become a wildly popular importer in the United States and many other countries.

© 2007