Today, multinational companies have a revolutionary impact on the economic system. This is due to an increase in international transactions by multinationals, which has a major impact on traditional forms of international trade and capital flows for economies. MNC's have had enormous power in international trade and finance. In this study I am going to reviews the historical development of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and examine the basic characteristics of the international expansion of companies, namely the definitions and the differencies between them, the way and direction of expansion, the motivation and influencing factors, and analyze the characteristics and categories of internationally expanding companies regarding to the size and the ownership structure, the cross-border nature and in the global economy as a whole.