Ten Largest Public Limited Companies in the World

Since the late 20th century, the largest corporations in the world have gotten much larger and their influence on the economy has increased significantly as well. This list includes top 10 largest public limited companies in the world by market capitalization (the value of all their outstanding shares), along with estimates of their total revenue and net income for 2017 and 2012, according to data from Forbes . In order to make sure we didn’t miss anyone, we also included statistics on how many employees work at each company’s headquarters as well as its five biggest subsidiaries.

 

Walmart

Founded by Sam Walton, Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, USA since 1962, it has 11,695 locations worldwide as of March 31, 2017. The company operates under Walmart Stores Inc. (formerly Wal-Mart Stores Inc.) in the United States and Canada.

 

Apple

The world’s most valuable company. Apple not only designs and sells its own hardware (Macs, iPhones, iPads), but also develops its own software and operating systems to run on them. The company is famous for its focus on aesthetics, top-notch engineering, and quality user experience—it's hard to imagine what our computing would be like today without them. The success of Apple products has encouraged other computer manufacturers to copy their design style. But unlike many other companies that have been driven into oblivion by imitators, Apple has thrived despite them; it's now one of the most valuable brands in history. In 2016 alone, Apple sold more than 231 million devices around the world and pulled in a net income of $59 billion dollars.

 

Alphabet Inc. (parent company of Google)

$752 billion (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (By revenues). Alphabet Inc. was established as a holding company of Google Inc. on October 2, 2015, making it one of the largest companies on earth by revenue and market capitalization. Alphabet is an American multinational conglomerate created to capitalize on emerging technologies not yet addressed by existing tech giants. In 2017, it surpassed Apple as the most valuable publicly traded company and held that spot for most of 2018, before being replaced by Apple again in 2019. Of its 84 subsidiary companies, only two—self-driving car unit Waymo and health tech firm Verily—are categorized as high growth or other bets. The rest are either mature operations or long-term bets that might not yield results for many years.

 

Berkshire Hathaway

The public company Warren Buffett leads is worth $221.1 billion and operates primarily in property, casualty, and casualty insurance markets through multiple subsidiaries. The companies Berkshire Hathaway owns and invests in have operations across a wide range of sectors, including insurance and reinsurance, utilities and energy, finance and banking, manufacturing and services. Some of its well-known subsidiaries include Fruit of the Loom, GEICO Auto Insurance Company and Dairy Queen.

 

China National Petroleum Corporation

The state-owned enterprise, also known as PetroChina, is considered to be one of China’s Big Four oil and gas conglomerates. The company has an annual revenue of $490 billion and a market capitalization of $232 billion. It is active in more than 70 countries around the world. In 2014, it became a publicly traded corporation under its Hong Kong stock code 0857. Shares of CNPC are listed on several exchanges, including those in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York City. As of 2015, it was still partially owned by Chinese government entities (about 20 percent).

 

Exxon Mobil Corporation

Based out of Irving, Texas, Exxon Mobil is one of the largest companies in terms of revenue with a whopping net income of $45.6 billion for 2016. The company has been operating since 1999 and employs over 76,000 people from 140 different countries throughout its many global operations. If you were to list all publicly traded companies by revenue, Exxon Mobil would come out as number two behind Walmart. The company is currently valued at $350 billion (even larger than Apple). Exxon’s business strategy focuses on oil exploration and production. It also operates refineries and chemical plants around the world that produce petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, lubricants, waxes, perfumes, cosmetics and more.

 

Tencent Holdings Ltd.

This Chinese company has a market cap of around $235 billion. Its gaming unit, Tencent Games, controls 80% of China’s online gaming market. It also produces mobile chat software, QQ. The company’s news app serves up 20 million news stories daily to users—more than CNN in China and nearly as many as The New York Times. A little background: Tencent was founded by Ma Huateng and Zeng Liqing in Shenzhen way back in 1998 and had its IPO on Nov. 5, 2004 at HK$3 per share (just 3 cents).

 

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.

This diversified financial services company is headquartered in San Francisco. It has nearly 9,000 offices and 12,000 ATMs across all 50 states, as well as 31 countries. It was founded in 1852 and has made Fortune 500 annuals for 19 consecutive years. With $1.4 trillion assets under management and $920 billion net income over its history, Wells Fargo & Company is ranked #26 on Forbes Global 2000 list of largest public companies globally by revenue.

 

Wells Fargo & Company

The largest bank holding company headquartered in America and a leader in personal banking services, investment banking, wholesale banking, asset management, and mortgage banking. It is also one of The Big Four banks of United States. In 2015, it was ranked third on Fortune's list of America's Most Admired Companies. As for 2016, Wells Fargo ranks 31st on Forbes' listing of America's S&P 500 corporations by revenue. The company is scheduled to release its quarterly earnings on February 16th 2017 (EST). In January 2017 Wells Fargo agreed to pay $110 million to settle allegations that it had charged African-American and Hispanic borrowers higher rates and fees than white borrowers since 2011 due to their race or national origin.

 

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

The company was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1969 as Samsung Electric Industries Co., Ltd. and has grown to be one of the world's largest conglomerates, employing more than 370,000 people. The majority of its profits come from building upon its mid-to-low range mobile phone products as well as manufacturing and selling televisions and home appliances. In 2018, Samsung reported revenues of $265 billion. It is not only ranked.