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.”

Hakan Samuelsson, chief executive of MAN, said: “We can never really grow our company significantly with the western European business cycle, so we will use this time now to really strengthen our position in emerging markets.”

Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Renault, said: “We want to compete in western Europe but this is more of a defensive position. With an emerging market, we are starting with a fresh sheet of paper.”

The growing emphasis is likely to mean more manufacturing leaves Europe as companies invest locally in emerging markets in both production and research and development.

Competition in emerging markets is increasingly coming from not only the traditional rivals of US companies but also local groups such as Shanghai Electric in power generation and Huawei in telecommunications equipment.

“A big problem for the Europeans in this part of the world isn't the Americans but the very rapidly improving Chinese or Indian,” said David Michael, head of Boston Consulting Group's globalisation practice.