Atlas Copco is basically involved in everything you interact with on a daily basis by producing on the assembly line or in actual consumer products such as the clothes you wear, the car you drive, and the semiconductors in your computer and phone. Last but not least, food and medical equipment.

Atlas Copco's four main business areas:

Compressor Technique. Providing compressed air solutions with products such as industrial compressors, gas, process compressors and expanders, and air management systems. A business area riding the trend of increased focus on energy efficiency.
Vacuum Technique. A business area that positions the company well in the digitalization of our society with constant needs for miniaturization and more complex production processes. The semiconductor industry is one of the main markets for Atlas Copco’s Vacuum Technique.
Industrial Technique. Helping automate customers’ production facilities with higher quality productivity and flexibility. Atlas Copco is a global key player in industrial automation.
Power Technique. As the focus continues to shift towards more sustainable solutions, this business area supplies its customers with ergonomic, productive, and safe energy, as well as storage equipment.

Atlas Copco has had a remarkably high and consistent return on capital employed over time. Their average ROCE between 2001-2021 has been 27 percent. Further, the company has also been very active on the M&A front, with 185 acquisitions during roughly 20 years.

Founded in 1873

Founded back in 1873, Atlas Copco is a Sweden-based industrial tools and equipment manufacturer with a market cap of $45 billion.

Atlas Copco originally made products for the railways, but today’s Atlas Copco originated in the early 20th century when the first compressors, tools, and rock drills were manufactured. The restructuring of their operations took off after Gustav Ryd, a young engineer, visited England and the US and brought a pneumatic caulking hammer and a riveting hammer back to Sweden.

The new machines proved invaluable and became an integral part of their own workshops, and as word spread of their efficiency and reliability, demand grew over the whole nation. As the need for spare parts and replacements increased, Atlas Copco could enter an entirely new line of business by supplying their customers with pneumatic tools and their key spare parts.

Atlas Copco merges and grows

In 1917, the company merged with Diesels Motorer, a marine and stationary diesel engine manufacturer, and renamed itself Atlas Diesel. As the years went on, the company's pneumatics operations flourished and were able to post a 50 percent profit margin in the early 1930s. The Diesel operations, however, were not as successful and were eventually terminated in 1948. This led Atlas to yet another renaming – deriving Copco from the name of a Belgian subsidiary – Compagnie Pneumatique Commerciale.