2018 Fortune Global 500 List Released: 120 Chinese Companies on the List

Fortune Magazine published on July 19 its annual global list of 500 corporations. This year, 120 Chinese companies made the cut, which makes China a close second to the U.S. with 126 companies.

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Also known as Global 500, the list is compiled according to the annual revenues of these top 500 companies as measured by Fortune magazine.

This is the first time that China achieved such astonishing growth since 1995 when Fortune Global 500 list began to include companies in the service sector.

Behind the U.S. and China, the third place this year is Japan that sees 52 companies in the list.

On the Global 500, Walmart ranked first for the fifth time in terms of the total revenue, followed by three Chinese companies – State Grid Corporation of China, Sinopec Group and China National Petroleum. These four have occupied the top four spots without change for years.

In the subcategory that ranks return on equity (ROE), Tencent Holdings Limited, Country Garden Group which is a property development company, and Huawei are among the top of the list. Tencent ranked first with an increase in ROE of over 30 percent.

Also noteworthy is that eight of the top ten companies with the biggest jumps are from mainland China. Alibaba Group ranks 300 this year, an increase of 162 places from 462 last year, and Tencent jumped 147 spots from last year to place at 331.

All Internet services companies have received outstanding rankings. China’s JD.com Inc., Alibaba Group, Tencent, and American companies such as Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook all moved up on the list. Huawei Technologies, a representative of the information and communication technologies industry, also rose from 83 to 72 this year.