From ECNS, July 23:
China tops the U.S. in number of companies on Fortune's Global 500 list published on Monday with 129 companies listed, exceeding the U.S., which had 121 companies listed, for the first time since the debut of the list in 1990, and becoming the first country to defeat the U.S. since WWII.....MORE
The overall turnover of the top 500 firms reached 32.7 trillion U.S. dollars, 8.9 percent higher over a year earlier. Up 14.5 percent year on year, the gross profit hit a record high at 2.15 trillion U.S. dollars with a net margin of 6.6 percent.
The U.S.-based company Walmart continued to top the list for a consecutive six years, followed by Sinopec Group, Royal Dutch Shell, China National Petroleum, State Grid and Saudi Aramco.
Saudi Aramco is at the top of the profit list with the highest earnings at about 111 billion U.S. dollars, while Apple ranked second and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) ranked third at about 60 billion U.S. dollars and 45 billion U.S. dollars, respectively.
A total of 54 companies from the banking industry are on the list – the industry with the most companies listed.
There are 11 Chinese banks on the list with total profits of over 200 billion U.S. dollars, contributing almost half of the profits of all listed companies from China....
