K&H: CEOs of large companies are finally reaching into their pockets when it comes to development

This means that twice as many are increasing the value of investments compared to the values measured in the previous quarter, and moreover, in the past two years, a similar increase – exceeding 10 percentage points – in the investment budget has not been experienced. The most popular investment is by far technological investment, with nearly a third of companies spending on this.

The investment willingness of large companies has accelerated in the past three months. According to the latest research results of the K&H Large Enterprise Growth Index for the second quarter of 2025, which presents the economic situation and expectations of Hungarian large companies, 42 percent of large companies plan to make some kind of investment in the next twelve months. This is an improvement of more than 10 percentage points compared to the previous two measurement cycles, when less than a third (29%) of company managers were thinking about development.

The research divides large companies into three categories based on revenue. The investment appetite has increased especially among the smallest (2-4 billion forints) and medium-sized (4-10 billion forints) companies, with openness to development increasing by 16 percentage points in the case of the former and 25 percentage points in the case of the latter. Thus, 41 percent of smaller companies and 55 percent of medium-sized companies are now thinking about it. They are confronted by the largest companies with sales exceeding 10 billion, where the willingness has decreased by 14 percentage points: just over a quarter (27%) of them plan to develop.

“There is no difference in investment willingness at the regional level, we measured growth simultaneously in the east, west and central regions. However, when examined by sector, it is even more so: the momentum of service companies is pulling the average upwards. According to our measurements, around two-thirds (60%) of companies are thinking about investments. In contrast, trade is struggling, in this sector they are rather waiting with developments, less than a quarter of them are thinking about it. Industry is balancing between the two, with around half of them calculating investment in the coming year, but this also represents a significant increase compared to the previous two periods. It seems that we have reached the point where large companies can no longer postpone investments”

– summarized the results Tibor Bodor, head of the corporate division of K&H.