New figures show Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) spends more than $1 million every hour of every day on research and development.

According to a respected international management consultancy firm, this makes Toyota the world's biggest R&D spender.

The figures are derived from Booz and Company's latest study known as the Global Innovation 1000 report.

It is an annual report that examines the 1000 public corporations worldwide that spend the most on researching and developing products and services.

Toyota has headed the list for each of the past three years.

Last year, according to the latest study, Toyota’s R&D spending was almost US$9 billion (A$9.776 billion).*

That is $200 million more than the second-placed company and works out at A$26.78 million per day – or a little over $1.1 million per hour.

The study said five of the top 20 global R&D spenders were automotive companies with Toyota ahead of General Motors fifth (previous year 2nd), Ford eighth (6th), Honda 16th (16th) and Volkswagen 17th (19th).

An important part of this year's report was a survey of almost 300 corporate leaders representing 230 companies, which collectively spent more than US$230 million on R&D in 2008.

The additional survey revealed that innovation investment is increasingly viewed as essential to corporate strategy.

More than 90 per cent of the executives in the survey said innovation was critical as they prepared for the up-turn.

Most had maintained or expanded their portfolios and were pursuing new products to improve growth and margins.

The authors said the recession's effect on innovation activity had not been as severe as some observers might have anticipated; in fact, innovation had become central to every company's efforts to compete.

They said the degree of competition had not been reduced by the economic downturn; if anything, it had been heightened.

Companies had been forced to maintain their R&D spending – even when revenues were declining – due to long product-development cycles.

This indicated that most companies were fully aware of the need to place themselves in a position to profit from the expected economic upturn.

* Conversion: A$1 = US$0.92

TOP 10 R&D SPENDERS (US$billion)

1 Toyota $8.994

2 Nokia $8.733

3 Roche Holding $8.168

4 Microsoft $8.164

5 General Motors $8.000

6 Pfizer $7.945

7 Johnson & Johnson $7.577

8 Ford $7.300

9 Novartis $7.217

10 Sanofi-Aventis $6.695

OTHER AUTO COMPANIES IN THE TOP 20

16 Honda $5.603

17 Volkswagen $5.429

Source: www.booz.com