For other uses of this term, see Industry (disambiguation)

An industry is generally any grouping of businesses that share a common method of generating profits, such as the "music industry", the "automobile industry", or the "cattle industry". It is also used specifically to refer to an area of economic production focused on manufacturing which involves large amounts of capital investment before any profit can be realized, also called "heavy industry.". As-of 2004, Financial services is the largest industry (or category of industries) in the world in terms of earnings.

Industry in the second sense became a key sector of production in European and North American countries during the Industrial Revolution, which upset previous mercantile and feudal economies through many successive rapid advances in technology, such as the development of steam engines, power looms, and advances in large scale steel and coal production. Industrial countries then assumed a capitalist economic policy. Railroads and steam-powered ships began speedily integrating previously impossibly-distant world markets, enabling private companies to develop to then-unheard of size and wealth. Following the Industrial Revolution, perhaps a third of the world's economic output is derived from manufacturing industries—more than agriculture's share, but now less than that of the service sector.

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