Q. Industry Classification

Sector/Industry classifications are often used to divide companies into industry groups. SIC is the best known, and companies have a Primary SIC code, and additional secondary ones.

- The main sector/industry classifications are:

SIC codes (US), or Standard Industrial Classification codes, are maintained by OSHA (older that NAICS but widely used).

NAICS codes (US), or North American Industrial Classification System codes, are maintained by the Census Bureau.

The NAICS Association maintains a NAICS and SIC lookup page where you can look up an industry by either code, or both codes by industry name.

- Other Industrial classification webpages:

Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States

ISIC - International Standard Industrial Classification on all Economic Activities by the United Nations Statistics Division.

Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community and NACE info.

- Other classifications such as GICS are used to classify companies stocks on a market:

GICS The General Industry Classification System (GICS), is joint system by MSCI and Standard and Poors (S&P).