The inaugural International Track 200 league table supplement was published in The Sunday Times on 8 July 2012, with title sponsor HSBC.

The league table ranked companies' international sales growth over the latest two years of available accounts, with minimum sales of £25m. The table was based on limited publicly available data of international sales so there are likely to be omissions, but it provides a useful picture of growth in overseas trade by UK private companies.

Despite difficult trading conditions, the 200 companies' international sales grew by an average of 43% a year over two years to a total of £9bn. International sales growth ranged from 21% pa to 570% pa.

The vast majority of companies' main market is mainland Europe (175), making it the most popular overseas market, followed by North America (92). More than half the companies focus their sales in one or two continents, however, 33 sell to four or more continents. The top countries for international sales are the US (69), Germany (57) and France (43).

The top-ranked company is Essence, a digital marketing agency. It had international sales of £35.2m in 2011, up 570% a year compared to £800,000 in 2009. See the press releases.

The 2013 International Track 200 league table will be published next July.