The percentage of sales from foreign countries from Standard & Poor's 500 companies with full reporting information increased in the latest financial year after five years of stagnation.
According to S&P Dow Jones Indices annual 500 Foreign Sales Report, the percentage of S&P 500 sales coming from outside of the United States equated to 47.82% in 2014, up from 46.29% in 2013 and 46% for each of the previous four years.
On a geographical basis, European sales rebounded in 2014, accounting for 7.46% of all S&P 500 sales, up from the previous year's 6.8%.
Sales in the United Kingdom fell for the fourth year in a row to 0.89% from 1.12% in 2013, 1.73% in 2012 and 2.39% in 2011.
Asian sales continued to increase but at a slower pace, the report showed.
Asian sales made up 7.8% of the total, up from 7.71% in 2013 and 7.46% in 2012.
Canadian sales increased to 3.51% and African-declared sales increased to 4.09% from the 3.55% calculated for 2013 and 2012.
Report author Howard Silverblatt said growth of the middle class in Africa had been slower than hoped for and, as a result, expected sales could be less than planned for and have a negative impact on profitability.
Looking at sector sales, information technology continued to be the most successful and exposed sector in terms of foreign sales. In 2014, nearly 60% of its declared sales were foreign, up from 56.6% in 2013. In 2014, S&P companies continued to send more payments to Washington for income taxes than they did to foreign governments, he said.
The percentage of income tax payments going to the US jumped to 61.8% of declared amounts, up from 54.9% in 2013 and 51.2% in 2012. Taxes sent to foreign governments fell to 38.2% from 45.1% in 2013.
One of the questions needing to be answered was if sales were almost evenly split between the US and foreign markets, why were the taxes so lopsided, he said.
''The initial answer could be that US tax rates are much higher than foreign tax rates. As a result, the taxes due on nearly comparable incomes are greater in the US.''
But since companies did not report full net attributed incomes, that belief in a time when the information was sorely needed by policy-makers was unsubstantiated, Mr Silverblatt said.
Actual payments to Washington increased 17.4% in 2014 to $US185.2billion ($NZ227.2billion) from $US157.7million in 2013 as payments abroad fell 11.8% to $US114.2billion from $US129.5billion.
