In reply to Peter Lancashire.

Hi Peter - Great question. I don't have enough experience with global geocoding to answer your question specifically. Esri has put significant effort into their global geocoder, so it may be a viable option for you. However, with the volume of locations you are working with, I would look closely at the credit usage that would be required. According to Esri's website (here), geocoding uses 40 credits per 1,000 geocodes, so this could become a non-trivial cost quickly. Exactly how this translates into dollars would depend upon your Esri agreement.

If city or postal code level geocoding works in your situation, you may be able to off load some of the work to PROC GEOCODE to reduce the Esri credit usage. See the following links for information on loading and using postal code lookup data for England, Australia, Canada, and other countries with PROC GEOCODE. SAS Maps online - Geocoding | SAS Geocoding docs