Companies in Europe are setting increasingly ambitious growth targets for emerging markets, with three of the continent's biggest names aiming to source half of their revenues from them within six years.

Philips, the Dutch consumer and healthcare group, Renault, the French carmaker, and MAN, the German truckmaker, are all aiming to earn more than half their sales from emerging markets by 2015 to counter slowing growth in the west, their chief executives told the Financial Times. All make about one-third of their revenues in emerging markets such as China, India, Brazil and the Middle East.

Gerard Kleisterlee, chief executive of Philips, said: “I could easily see that by 2015 around half of our revenue will come from these economies. That would put the centre of gravity much more in emerging markets than it is today.”