For the first time, Chinese companies, including those in Taiwan province, have overtaken their U.S. counterparts on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2022 in terms of total revenue. For the fourth consecutive year, China topped the annual list in terms of the number of companies. The United States and Japan followed with 124 and 47 enterprises, respectively. The global list for 2022 showed 145 Chinese companies contributed 31% of the total revenue of the world’s 500 largest corporations, while the 124 U.S. companies accounted for 30%. “Aggregate sales for the Fortune Global 500 hit USD37.8 trillion, an increase of 19% – the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history,” Fortune said on its website. Observers said the latest list confirms China’s rising prowess in sectors like manufacturing and infrastructure, but more efforts are needed to improve the Chinese companies’ overall profitability, they said.
Walmart, the largest retailer in the U.S., topped the Global 500 list with a revenue of USD572.75 billion. China’s State Grid, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and Sinopec Group made the top 10, ranking third, fourth and fifth, respectively. Last year, they ranked second, fourth and fifth, respectively. “China’s top performance again proves its important role in global manufacturing and its remarkable industrial resilience amid the Covid-19 pandemic, as China led in the number of companies, including those in metal, construction and coal mining,” said Wang Peng, Researcher from the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences. This year, 19 metal product companies, 12 construction engineering firms and six coal mining enterprises from China made it to the list, while the U.S. has only one metal product company. In terms of improvement in rankings, China’s Ansteel Group Corp made the highest jump of 183 places to 217.
The gap between Chinese companies’ average profit level and that of the other Fortune 500 companies, however, has widened this year. The average profit of the 145 Chinese companies in the list is USD4.1 billion, lower than the global average of USD6.2 billion and 2.5 times lower than that of U.S. firms. “If traditional manufacturing companies can make good use of the industrial internet and other technology-driven factors to develop their business, their profits are very likely to exceed that of foreign peers in the coming years,” Wang Peng said, as reported by the China Daily.
