The largest and most valuable companies in the world. The largest and most valuable companies in the world The most profitable company in the world
Companies with the highest market capitalization in 2016 and recognized as the most valuable in this indicator: Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Berkshire Hathaway, Facebook, Johnson & Johnson, Amazon, General Electric, Wells Fargo.
The holdings that collectively have the highest price in the world are the most expensive by market capitalization. This indicator should not be confused with market value.
In the process of inter-exchange trading, the value of shares constantly jumps, so capitalization changes daily. The rating indicates the capitalization, on the basis of which the English-language edition Forbes magazine prepared and published a list of the most valuable companies in the world in May 2016, as well as some indicators of capitalization in 2017. All ten places in the ranking belong to American corporations.
Apple
The status of the most expensive corporation in the world by market capitalization belongs to the legendary Apple, a public company founded by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak in April 1976. Until January 2007, it was called Apple Computer, Inc.
Produces:
- computer technology;
- telephones;
- tablets;
- televisions;
- smart watch;
- digital music players;
- software;
- OS under iCloud and Apple brands.
Apple has a unique reputation for producing electronics with aesthetic design coupled with modern innovative technologies.
Capitalization:$586 billion at the time of the Forbes 2016 ranking, and $766 billion at the beginning of April 2016
Since 2016, the company's capitalization has had a pronounced growth dynamics, reaching more than 700 billion US dollars by the beginning of 2017.
corporate headquarters Apple located in Cupertino, California.
Apple has gone from a small startup founded in the garage of Steve Jobs, who later became a cult figure and an idol of youth around the world, to the richest corporation in terms of capitalization. Interestingly, the initial capital for starting the business was the money raised by Jobs from the sale of a minibus and Wozniak from the sale of a calculator (!).
Alphabet
Second place is occupied by a company owned by the founders of the Google Inc holding Larry Page and Sergey Brin. She owns several large companies and Google Inc itself, whose shares have been converted into shares in Alphabet Inc.
Market capitalization: $500.1 billion in May 2016 and $586 billion as of early 2017.
The transformation of Google into Alphabet was officially announced in August 2015, a move that raised eyebrows among the general public. Since then, Google's receiver has repeatedly overtaken the giant Apple and ranked first in the top of the most valuable companies in the world by market capitalization.
The headquarters of the holding is located in the world center of high technology accumulation - Silicon Valley in the USA in the small town of Mountain View, California.
Before the end of 2017, the American holding "Alfavit" intends to begin the construction of a building with an area of 85 square meters. meters in London, which will be called upon to become its headquarters.
According to the Gazeta.ru publishing house, analysts expect a significant increase in the holding's capitalization due to the rapid growth of the mobile advertising market, according to forecasts, by 2019 this market may reach $200 billion.
Notable is the fact that Alphabet controls 12% of all the money in the world spent on display advertising. This information is provided by Adweek, a national professional magazine for the advertising industry. No other company in the world has ever single-handedly controlled such a huge share of the global advertising market.
Microsoft Corporation
To the largest developer software founded by Bill Gates (now the richest man in the world) and Paul Allen, turned 42 in April 2017. Programs developed by Microsoft are designed for personal computers, laptops, mobile phones, game consoles.
Capitalization:$407 billion in May 2016 and $514 billion at the beginning of April 2017.
The headquarters of the holding is located in the city of Redmond, located in the state of Washington (USA).
Microsoft Corporation has launched several projects of IoT laboratories: in Washington, Redmond and Shenzhen, and recently in Munich, Germany. These are the so-called Internet of Things laboratories. The idea of the projects is that in the near future all household appliances, from vacuum cleaners to refrigerators, will be connected to the Internet.
ExxonMobil
Fourth on the list is Exxon Mobil Corporation, the world's largest public oil company. The founder of the parent trust Standard Oil Corporation "Exxon Mobil" is John Rockefeller - the first dollar billionaire in the history of mankind.
It is engaged in exploration, development and distribution of gas and oil, trades in petroleum products, produces petrochemicals.
Capitalization:$363.3 billion in May 2016, $366 billion at the beginning of 2017.
The head office is located in the Texas city of Irving.
In 2011, Exxon Mobil entered into an agreement with one of the largest Russian oil companies, Rosneft, on joint exploration and production of oil reserves on the Black Sea shelf. However, due to US sanctions imposed in 2014, joint work was suspended.
Berkshire Hathaway
The holding was founded in 1955 by Oliver Chase (now the chairman of the board of directors and the owner is Warren Buffett). Holding activities: insurance, investments, utilities and other services. Freight and rail transportation, financial operations, trade, production.
Capitalization:$360.1 billion as of May 2016.
The headquarters is located in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
In 2015, according to Forbes, Berkshire Hathaway ranked fifth (the first four places belong to Chinese banks) among the largest public companies in the world and first among American ones.
The world's largest social network Facebook and the company of the same name, created in 2004 by Harvard psychology student Mark Zuckerberg, along with his comrades: Dustin Moskowitz, Eduardo Soverino and Chris Hughes, also entered the list of 10 most expensive companies in the world.
Facebook owns: an application with elements of the social network "Instragram" and instant messaging messenger WhatsApp. The main server of the site is located in the Californian city of Menlo Park.
Facebook is one of the five most visited sites in the world, and its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, at the age of 23, was awarded the title of the youngest billionaire in the world.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson Holding, founded by three brothers Robert, James and Edward Johnson in 1886. Produces medicines, medical equipment and hygiene products.
Capitalization: 312.6 billion dollars.
The head office is located in the state of New Jersey in the city of New Brunswick. Current Chairman of the Board: Alex Gorski.
At first, the holding was engaged in the manufacture of plasters and dressings. Now the corporation has more than 250 subsidiaries around the world.
Amazon.com
The world's largest e-commerce company was founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Preston Bezos.
Capitalization:$292.6 billion as of May 2016.
The name was chosen in honor of the Amazon River. Initially, only books were sold, then CDs and video products appeared. Now through the Amazon online store you can buy almost industrial goods: from clothes and toys to food and electronics.
General Electric
The American diversified manufacturing giant General Electric was originally founded by the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison, in 1878. Now key person of the company - chief executive and chairman of the board of directors Jeffrey Immelt.
The company manufactures engines, turbines, locomotives, nuclear reactors, photographic and household appliances, lighting equipment, military products (including nuclear warheads) and other products.
The company's headquarters is located in the state of Connecticut, the city of Fairfield (USA).
Mass production The holding began in 1910 with the production of light bulbs with a tungsten filament, a patent for the use of which was acquired from the Russian inventor A.N. Lodygin.
Wells Fargo
The banking company, founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo in 1852, is one of the four largest banks in the United States and the most valuable bank by market capitalization in the world. Provides financial and insurance services.
Capitalization:$256 billion as of May 2016.
The company itself is located in San Francisco, California, and the headquarters of the banking division in South Dakota.
Wells Fargo is the first bank to offer customers in 1995 the ability to make transactions with accounts via the Internet: buy, sell securities, pay, bills. The controlling stake in the company is controlled by the Berkshire Hathaway holding, owned by multibillionaire Warren Buffett, who is in fifth place in terms of capitalization in this rating.
This is the list of companies whose shares collectively have the highest price. Russian largest companies, as well as others, except for American ones, were not included in it.
Brand value:$145.3 billion
Change per year:+17%
The Apple brand is worth at least twice as much as any other Forbes brand. In the fourth quarter of 2014, the company sold 74.8 million smartphones worldwide, overtaking Samsung, which has not happened since 2011. iPhone sales up 49% on $18 billion in revenue for the quarter.
Brand value:$69.3 billion
Change per year: +10%
Since February 2014, the company has been headed by Satya Nadella, a native of India. In the summer of 2015, Microsoft is going to release new version Windows.
Brand value:$65.6 billion
Change per year:+16%
Google is still the main search system in USA. Its market share in search engines is 64.4%. In April 2015, the European Union accused Google of violating antitrust laws. According to EU officials, the company is abusing its dominant position. If found guilty, the search giant could face a $6 billion fine.
Brand value:$56 billion
Change per year: 0%
Sales of Coca-Cola in the US increased by 0.1% in 2014. But even this small increase is significant for the company, since this is the first increase in Coca-Cola sales in the domestic market since 2000. Fly in the ointment: The company's 2014 net income fell 17%, while Diet Coke sales fell 6.6%.
Brand value:$49.8 billion
Change per year: +4%
The company has had a hard time lately - sales of IBM equipment have been declining for 12 quarters in a row. But IBM does not lose heart and is going to turn from a hardware manufacturer into a leader in the cloud computing market. In the first quarter of 2015, the income from the "clouds" it created grew by 60%.
Brand value:$39.5 billion
Change per year: -1%
McDonald's serves about 69 million customers every day in 100 countries around the world. But recently, the brand has been facing changing eating habits in the United States and high food quality requirements in Asia. In the first quarter of 2015, McDonald's sales decreased by 11 %. This year, the company plans to close about 700 unprofitable restaurants in the US, China and Japan.
Brand value:$37.9 billion
Change per year:+8%
Due to strong competition from Apple in the expensive gadget segment and Chinese manufacturers in the budget price segment, Samsung's growth has slowed down. This year, the company hopes for a successful sale of the new S6 smartphone.
Brand value:$37.8 billion
Change per year:+21%
Toyota is the most profitable brand in the world - in 2014 the company showed a net profit of $19.8 billion.
9. General Electric
Brand value:$37.5 billion
Today we have top 10 most valuable companies in the world.
Today, many people will surely recognize the company logo, because Apple Corporation has become one of the most successful companies with a market value of $ 1,397 billion.
The company was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Jobs. Initially, the trinity was engaged in assembling home computers and releasing their own PC models, but the greatest success came precisely in the last years of the company, when Apple introduced its mobile product lines to the world - iPhone smartphones and iPad tablets.
To date, the range of the company's products is very wide - smart watches, computers and laptops, tablets and smartphones, and more. But main feature The popularity of "apple" gadgets was the high quality, stylish design and the smartest marketing program of Steve Jobs.
Today, the company includes thousands of representative offices, branded stores and service centers around the world, with a staff of about 132 thousand employees.
The headquarters is located in the USA, in the city of Cupertino, California.
$1,274 billion
Industry: Software development.
Products: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Xbox.
The third most valuable company in the world is Microsoft.
The world famous corporation was founded in 1975, today one of the richest people in the world - Bill Gates.
At that time, Microsoft was the first developer to offer packaged software for home computers, making PC management user-friendly and intuitive.
The Windows operating system was a real breakthrough, because it made it easy for ordinary users to master the PC, which brought the company incredible success and huge profits.
To date, Microsoft is also one of the leaders in the PC software market, releasing operating systems Windows new generations, application applications for working with documentation - Microsoft Office, as well as a number of other programs. In addition, MS produces its own mobile devices and components, video, audio and office equipment.
The headquarters is located in Redmond, Washington.
$1,020 billion
Industry: Internet.
The world-famous Internet company Google has recently changed its official name to Alphabet, as the company has long gone beyond one Google search engine, and also owns many other companies.
The heads of the Internet holding are Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who have jointly created this mega-company since 1998.
Google is headquartered in California, and the holding includes more than three dozen popular services and subsidiaries, such as AdWords, Android, YouTube and others.
Amazon Inc.
$924.52 billion
Industry: Retail.
January 7, 2019, company Amazon for the first time became the most valuable company in the world outperforming its competitor, Microsoft. She is currently in 5th place.
Amazon is an American retail company that sells and delivers various goods over the Internet.
With the help of Amazon Internet, users, suppliers and manufacturers can sell any goods themselves, using the company's website as an online platform.
The main direction of the company is the independent sale of various goods. The popularity of the service has increased due to high quality goods, low prices, prompt delivery and a wide range of different products.
The company was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. The head office is located in Seattle, Washington.
According to the general assessment, about 647.5 thousand employees currently work in the company. The corporation's assets are more than $162 billion, and the annual turnover is about $232 billion.
$633.49 billion
Industry: Internet.
Facebook was developed by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. Today, the Facebook social network is visited by over 2 billion people daily. For one Internet project, with a market value of 633 billion dollars, this is simply an astronomical indicator of popularity and demand.
Today, Facebook generates over $22 billion in net revenue per year through advertising. In addition, Facebook is the leader among this list in terms of profitability, since only for Last year the company increased its net profit by 54%.
The headquarters is located in Menlo Park, California.
Alibaba Group
$610.13 billion
Industry: Internet.
Products: E-commerce, online auction hosting, online money transfer, mobile commerce.
Alibaba is one of the largest virtual trading platforms in China and the world, attracting the attention of buyers as affordable prices as well as a wide range of products.
Founded on April 4, 1999, the company provides consumer, business-to-consumer and business services through web portals, as well as electronic payment services, a customer search engine and cloud computing.
The headquarters is located in Hangzhou.
$562.39 billion
Industry: Insurance, finance, railway transport, utilities, production of food and non-food products.
The company is known for its permanent owner, American investor and entrepreneur Warren Buffett. The headquarters is located in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
The cost of one share of this company is $344,970, which makes it the most expensive share in the world.
Affiliated companies:
- GEICO (auto insurance);
- General Re (reinsurance);
- Berkshire Hathaway Primary Group (insurance);
- Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group (insurance and reinsurance);
- BNSF - (railway transport);
- Berkshire Hathaway Energy (electricity and gas supply);
- McLane Company (wholesale).
In 2015, the number of participants in the annual meeting of shareholders exceeded 40 thousand people.
For this reason, the company's shareholders' meeting was jokingly nicknamed "Woodstock for the capitalists."
$492.9 billion
Industry: Conglomerate.
Products: Social networks, instant messaging, media mass media, web portals, etc.
Tencent is a venture capital company, conglomerate, investment holding, and one of the largest companies in the gaming industry.
This Chinese multinational investment holding, founded in 1998, today occupies the 9th position in the ranking of the most valuable companies.
Its many services include social media, mobile games, music, web portals, payment systems, e-commerce, Internet services, smartphones and online multiplayer games, which are among the largest and most successful in the world in their respective categories.
Tencent Seafront Towers (also known as Tencent Binhai Mansion) is headquartered in Nanshan District, Shenzhen.
Visa Inc.
$441.61 billion
Industry: Financial services.
Visa Inc. founded in 1958 and is an international company that is engaged in payment transactions and bank transfers between financial institutions.
Visa is the second largest payment system in the world in terms of issued cards and transactions. Visa cards can be used to pay in more than 200 countries.
Most of the company's transactions are processed using the VisaNet electronic payment network.
Remarkably, the company has four centers for processing these transfers, which are located in Colorado, Virginia, England and Singapore. They are reliably protected from possible criminal interventions and natural disasters.
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA.
Headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Market capitalization as a method of assessing the value of a company
Market capitalization, along with annual income and the sum of all assets, is one of the methods for assessing the investment attractiveness of a company.
Using market capitalization to represent the size of a company is important because the size of a company is a major factor in determining the various characteristics that investors are interested in, including risk.
Being the product of the number of shares and their value, market capitalization is not the price at which the owner will necessarily sell his company.
Despite the fact that companies are overvalued by the market or, on the contrary, undervalued, in order to get the real value of a company, it is necessary to consider its activities from a fundamental point of view.
Brand value:$145.3 billion
Change per year:+17%
The Apple brand is worth at least twice as much as any other Forbes brand. In the fourth quarter of 2014, the company sold 74.8 million smartphones worldwide, overtaking Samsung, which has not happened since 2011. iPhone sales up 49% on $18 billion in revenue for the quarter.
Brand value:$69.3 billion
Change per year: +10%
Since February 2014, the company has been headed by Satya Nadella, a native of India. In the summer of 2015, Microsoft is going to release a new version of Windows.
Brand value:$65.6 billion
Change per year:+16%
Google is still the top search engine in the US. Its market share in search engines is 64.4%. In April 2015, the European Union accused Google of violating antitrust laws. According to EU officials, the company is abusing its dominant position. If found guilty, the search giant could face a $6 billion fine.
Brand value:$56 billion
Change per year: 0%
Sales of Coca-Cola in the US increased by 0.1% in 2014. But even this small increase is significant for the company, since this is the first increase in Coca-Cola sales in the domestic market since 2000. Fly in the ointment: The company's 2014 net income fell 17%, while Diet Coke sales fell 6.6%.
Brand value:$49.8 billion
Change per year: +4%
The company has had a hard time lately - sales of IBM equipment have been declining for 12 quarters in a row. But IBM does not lose heart and is going to turn from a hardware manufacturer into a leader in the cloud computing market. In the first quarter of 2015, the income from the "clouds" it created grew by 60%.
Brand value:$39.5 billion
Change per year: -1%
McDonald's serves about 69 million customers every day in 100 countries around the world. But recently, the brand has been facing changing eating habits in the United States and high food quality requirements in Asia. In the first quarter of 2015, McDonald's sales decreased by 11 %. This year, the company plans to close about 700 unprofitable restaurants in the US, China and Japan.
Brand value:$37.9 billion
Change per year:+8%
Due to strong competition from Apple in the expensive gadget segment and Chinese manufacturers in the budget price segment, Samsung's growth has slowed down. This year, the company hopes for a successful sale of the new S6 smartphone.
Brand value:$37.8 billion
Change per year:+21%
Toyota is the most profitable brand in the world - in 2014 the company showed a net profit of $19.8 billion.
9. General Electric
Brand value:$37.5 billion
Below is a list of the world's largest companies based on their market capitalization. First on the list is Apple Inc., founded in 1976, with a market capitalization of over $900 billion, followed by Alphabet and Microsoft in second and third, respectively. Apple Corporation, headquartered in Cupertino, California and employing approximately 123,000 people (including over 76,000 in the US), has approximately 500 retail locations in 22 countries. For fiscal year 2017, the company's revenue (net sales) was $229 billion. Apple has created about 2 million jobs in the US. Alphabet, headquartered in Mountain View, California, is the second largest company in the world by market capitalization.
Top 50 most valuable companies in the world
| Place 2017 |
Place 2018 |
Company | A country | Market capitalization (US$ billion, January 17, 2018) |
Market capitalization (billion US dollars, January 17, 2017) |
| 1 | 1 | Apple | USA | 911.1 | 630.9 |
| 2 | 2 | Alphabet | USA | 788.8 | 562.9 |
| 3 | 3 | Microsoft | USA | 695.4 | 486.0 |
| 5 | 4 | Amazon | USA | 624.0 | 383.7 |
| 13 | 5 | Tencent Holdings | China | 550.2 | 243.8 |
| 4 | 6 | Berkshire Hathaway | USA | 528.5 | 395.8 |
| 6 | 7 | USA | 518.3 | 369.6 | |
| 14 | 8 | Alibaba | China | 470.8 | 239.5 |
| 8 | 9 | Johnson & Johnson | USA | 394.9 | 312.1 |
| 9 | 10 | JPMorgan Chase | USA | 392.0 | 300.4 |
| 15 | 11 | Industrial & Comm Bank of China | China | 376.8 | 231.4 |
| 7 | 12 | ExxonMobil | USA | 372.9 | 357.8 |
| 17 | 13 | Bank of America | USA | 325.2 | 228.7 |
| 11 | 14 | Wells Fargo | USA | 314.6 | 272.6 |
| 26 | 15 | Walmart Stores | USA | 304.2 | 209.3 |
| 21 | 16 | Samsung Electronics | South Korea | 301.7 | 224.2 |
| 16 | 17 | Royal Dutch Shell | Netherlands | 296.6 | 229.6 |
| 30 | 18 | Visa | USA | 276.4 | 189.9 |
| 18 | 19 | Nestle | Switzerland | 268.5 | 228.5 |
| 32 | 20 | China Construction Bank | China | 267.1 | 188.3 |
| 22 | 21 | Chevron | USA | 251.4 | 218.9 |
| 23 | 22 | PetroChina Co Ltd | China | 235.9 | 217.4 |
| 25 | 23 | Anheuser-Busch InBev | Belgium | 234.2 | 212.8 |
| 39 | 24 | Home Depot | USA | 233.3 | 165.9 |
| 20 | 25 | Procter & Gamble | USA | 231.4 | 227.3 |
| 45 | 26 | United Health Group | USA | 231.1 | 150.1 |
| 29 | 27 | Toyota Motor | Japan | 229.6 | 193.8 |
| 31 | 28 | Novartis | Switzerland | 227.4 | 188.9 |
| 12 | 29 | AT&T | USA | 226.2 | 250.6 |
| 43 | 30 | Taiwan Semiconductor | Taiwan | 223.7 | 152.9 |
| 38 | 31 | HSBC Holdings | Great Britain | 222.4 | 166.5 |
| 28 | 32 | Pfizer | USA | 221.6 | 194.4 |
| – | 33 | Ping An Insurance Group | China | 217.7 | 94.0 |
| 46 | 34 | Agricultural Bank of China | China | 217.1 | 148.3 |
| 24 | 35 | Verizon Communications | USA | 211.0 | 213.004 |
| 27 | 36 | Roche Holding | Switzerland | 210.5 | 202.8 |
| – | 37 | Boeing | USA | 209.1 | 97.3 |
| 41 | 38 | Oracle | USA | 208.1 | 160.8 |
| 34 | 39 | Intel | USA | 207.7 | 174.2 |
| 19 | 40 | China Mobile | China | 207.6 | 227.4 |
| 40 | 41 | Citigroup | USA | 204.8 | 163.5 |
| 44 | 42 | Cisco Systems | USA | 203.7 | 150.7 |
| 33 | 43 | Coca Cola | USA | 199.5 | 178.1 |
| 35 | 44 | Comcast | USA | 194.8 | 173.0 |
| 48 | 45 | Bank of China | China | 189.4 | 146.2 |
| – | 46 | mastercard | USA | 174.0 | 117.2 |
| 47 | 47 | PepsiCo | USA | 169.5 | 147.3 |
| 37 | 48 | Merck | USA | 169.0 | 168.7 |
| 36 | 49 | Walt Disney | USA | 168.7 | 171.3 |
| – | 50 | AbbVie | USA | 166.5 | 98.5 |
20 largest companies in the world by revenue
Below is a list of the largest companies in the world based on their combined revenue. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., an American retail giant, is the largest company in the world with $485 billion in total revenue. The company, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, employs 2.3 million people. It serves over 250 million customers weekly on the Internet and in 11,700 locations in 28 countries.
| Place | Company | A country | Revenue (billion USD, 2016) | Net income (billion USD, 2016) |
| 1 | wal mart | USA | $485.3 | $13.6 |
| 2 | State Grid Corporation | China | $301.4 | $12.5 |
| 3 | China Petroleum & Chemical | China | $255.7 | $7.0 |
| 4 | Toyota Motor | Japan | $236.7 | $19.3 |
| 5 | Volkswagen Group | Germany | $228.9 | $5.4 |
| 6 | Royal Dutch Shell | Netherlands | $213.0 | $4.2 |
| 7 | Berkshire Hathaway | USA | $222.9 | $24.1 |
| 8 | Apple | USA | $217.5 | $45.2 |
| 9 | petrochina | China | $214.8 | $1.2 |
| 10 | ExxonMobil | USA | $197.5 | $7.8 |
| 11 | McKesson | USA | $196.5 | $2.0 |
| 12 | United Health Group | USA | $184.9 | $7.2 |
| 13 | BP plc | Great Britain | $183.8 | $0.1 |
| 14 | CVS Health | USA | $177.5 | $5.3 |
| 15 | Samsung Electronics | South Korea | $174 | $19.3 |
| 16 | Daimler | Germany | $169.5 | $9.4 |
| 17 | General Motors | USA | $166.4 | $9.4 |
| 18 | AT&T | USA | $163.8 | $13.0 |
| 19 | Glencore | Switzerland | $152.9 | $0.94 |
| 20 | Ford Motor Company | USA | $151.8 | $4.6 |
Loading...
