On the basis of the proliferation of international branch campuses, the paper analyses globalisation processes in higher education and the emergence of a transnational and global higher education market. While most research only refers to a growth and global expansion of branch campuses, this analysis traces and illuminates four waves of international branch campus foundations in different areas of the world and their specific founding conditions. In doing so, it provides a macro-perspective on the emergence of the global higher education market. Although international branch campuses have diversified remarkably, they are neither spatially equal nor distributed on a global scale.