With a market capitalization of 3.12 trillion U.S. dollars as of May 2024, Microsoft was the world’s largest company that year. Rounding out the top five were some of the world’s most recognizable brands: Apple, NVIDIA, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Amazon. Saudi Aramco led the ranking of the world's most profitable companies in 2023, with a pre-tax income of nearly 250 billion U.S. dollars. How are market value and market capitalization determined? Market value and market capitalization are two terms frequently used – and confused - when discussing the profitability and viability of companies. Strictly speaking, market capitalization (or market cap) is the worth of a company based on the total value of all their shares; an important metric when determining the comparative value of companies for trading opportunities. Accordingly, many stock exchanges such as the New York or London Stock Exchange release market capitalization data on their listed companies. On the other hand, market value technically refers to what a company is worth in a much broader context. It is determined by multiple factors, including profitability, corporate debt, and the market environment as a whole. In this sense it aims to estimate the overall value of a company, with share price only being one element. Market value is therefore useful for determining whether a company’s shares are over- or undervalued, and in arriving at a price if the company is to be sold. Such valuations are generally made on a case-by-case basis though, and not regularly reported. For this reason, market capitalization is often reported as market value. What are the top companies in the world? The answer to this question depends on the metric used. Although the largest company by market capitalization, Microsoft's global revenue did not manage to crack the top 20 companies. Rather, American multinational retailer Walmart was ranked as the largest company in the world by revenue. Walmart also had the highest number of employees in the world.

In 2024, the**************************************o posted the highest revenue of any company in the world before taxes, with an income of over *** billion U.S. dollars. ************************************************** rounded out the top five spots in the ranking of most profitable companies. What is net income? Net income, or net profit, which differs slightly from pre-tax income, is the figure that gives the most complete overview of a company’s profitability: It is calculated as the revenue of a company less all operating expenses, debt payments, interest paid, income from subsidiary holdings, taxes, etc. Different industries have different net profit margins. The Apple doesn’t fall far In terms of market value, Microsoft was the largest company in the world in 2024, with Apple following in second. Since the beginning of the new millennium, Apple has reported ever rising amounts of worldwide revenue, with iPhone sales leading the charge.

As of January 2025, Amazon's market capitalization surpassed 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars, making it the most valuable internet company by market capitalization worldwide. Second-ranked Alphabet had a market capitalization of approximately 2.2 trillion U.S. dollars. Social networking company Meta Platforms (née Facebook Inc.) ranked third. Facebook is the leading social network worldwide and has successfully taken advantage of the increasingly mobile online environment. Amazon's position in the market Amazon is one of the biggest internet companies worldwide by revenue. It generates profit from its position as the world's largest online retailer. In 2023, the company's net sales revenue amounted to 574.78 billion U.S. dollars. The e-commerce giant's net revenue, generated through online stores, was 231.87 billion U.S. dollars. Google and its most profitable services Google, with the parent company Alphabet inc, generates its revenue mainly from advertising. The company uses its advertisement services, such as Google AdWords – which takes advantage of Google searches and appears as small advertisements next to search results – and Google AdSense, which generates advertisements based on a user's search history and location, among others. Advertisements based on AdSense appear across Google-owned sites, including YouTube and Google Finance. The online company also profits from the development of Android OS, licensing, and mobile apps. In 2024, Google’s total revenue amounted to 348.16 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2024, Microsoft generated approximately, **** billion U.S. dollars in revenue, making it the largest IT services company in the world in terms of revenue. Other major firms in the IT services market include Alphabet Inc., with revenues of over **** billion U.S. dollars, followed by AWS and Meta. IT services market A key sub-sector of the larger information technology industry is the IT services market. This sub-sector brings in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, with forecasts suggesting that this number will reach 1.42 trillion U.S. dollars in spending in 2023 after eclipsing the one trillion dollar mark in 2019. Digitalization, along with constant technological advancement, means that businesses in nearly every industry rely on IT services which results in continuous market spending. What are IT services products? The term IT services refers to a large amount of services and solutions used by businesses to assess, manage, and deliver information. These services include cloud computing, database management, as well as hardware deployment and support. Notably, these IT solutions assist in a vast array of business functions and thereby empower companies to stay agile and adaptive in a quickly changing environment.

Shell had the highest annual revenue of all companies based in the United Kingdom in 2025, at approximately 284 billion U.S. dollars. BP had the second-highest annual revenue at over 189 billion dollars, followed by HSBC Holdings, which had a revenue of around 142 billion U.S. dollars. In terms of global employee numbers, however, Compass Group had the highest number among UK-based businesses, at approximately half a million in 2024, followed by Tesco at 336,400 and HSBC at almost 211,000. Big Oil, a banking giant, and Britain's top supermarket chain The two companies listed as having the most revenue in the UK this year are also two of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, alongside Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies. After a huge surge in energy prices in 2022, these companies saw their profits recede slightly in 2023, but clearly remain in strong financial positions as of 2024. HSBC Holdings, meanwhile, was the largest bank in Europe in terms of market capitalization, and was estimated to have the second-highest number of UK-based customers in 2024. The company with the fourth-highest revenue in this year, Tesco has by some distance the largest grocery-market share in Great Britain, a position it has maintained despite growing competition from discounters like Lidl and Aldi. UK economy health check In the first quarter of 2025, the UK economy grew by 0.7 percent, emerging from a brief slowdown in growth towards the end of 2024. Consumer Price inflation, has, however, started to increase, with the inflation rate reaching 3.5 percent in April, the highest rate since January 2024. Furthermore, the UK labor market is showing signs of weakness, with quite a high number of job losses since the start of the year. Alongside these generally negative signs, business confidence in the UK has been falling, with the main concern of UK firms being that of taxation, as of early 2025.

In 2024, Cargill was the largest private company in the United States, by revenue. That year, they had a revenue of 160 billion U.S. dollars. In comparison, gas station company QuikTrip made around 19.6 billion U.S. dollars. Cargill Cargill is a multinational corporation that focuses on agricultural services, crop and livestock, raw materials, and health and pharmaceuticals. Most of their business focuses on purchasing and distributing grain, palm oil, energy trade, and steel. It is a family-owned business headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and founded in 1865. It operates in over 60 countries, has about 150,000 employees, and is responsible for about a quarter of all United States grain exports. Additionally, it also supplies about a quarter of the domestic meat market. Largest U.S. companies United Healthcare Group was the largest health insurance company in 2018, while SC Johnson was the largest private household and personal care product company. United Healthcare is also headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, while SC Johnson is headquartered in Racine, Wisconsin. United Healthcare is not only the largest health insurance company in the United States, but also worldwide. Furthermore, SC Johnson is one of the oldest family-owned companies in the country, and currently over owns over 20 brands.

This statistic shows the leading providers of digital goods, services and content in the internet market in Germany in 2013. The Statista and LSP Digital ranking is based on annual business reports, press databases and expert interviews among others. With an annual revenue of roughly 1.9 billion euros, Google ranked first ahead of iTunes and Expedia.

In 2020, Nielsen was the leading market research and data analytics company in the United States in terms of revenue. Nielsen generated nearly *** billion U.S. dollars in revenue in the United States, while abroad it generated over *** billion U.S. dollars. Second in the ranking was IQVIA, whose revenues reached **** billion euros dollars worldwide.

In 2023, Universal Music Group had a physical revenue market share of **** percent, and also held the highest digital share that year among the individual companies, remaining the largest record company in the world. While Sony saw a slight drop in their physical revenue market shares, independent record companies reached a share of **** percent, making up the largest part of the market.

Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) was the leading company in France by market capitalization as of October 2024, with a valuation of approximately ***** billion U.S. dollars. Hermès and L'Oréal followed, with market capitalizations of ****** billion and ****** billion U.S. dollars, respectively. Luxury goods market in France France is globally renowned for its rich history and numerous high-end fashion brands in the luxury goods market. For example, Chanel was among the world’s most recognized luxury brands in 2022, among other French brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Hermes. Moreover, France ranks among the biggest five markets for luxury goods in the world, and the sector’s revenue in the country is expected to exceed ** billion U.S. dollars by 2025. LVMH: the world’s leading luxury company LVMH is a French luxury goods conglomerate operating across various sectors, including fashion and leather goods, perfumes and cosmetics, jewelry and watches, and wines and spirits. As the largest French company in the world, LVMH group's total revenue was over ** billion euros in 2023. Almost half of the revenue came from their business in the fashion and leather segment, which amounted to 42.16 billion euros in 2023.

In 2024, online retail platform Amazon ranked first among publicly traded internet companies, with global annual revenue amounting to ****** billion U.S. dollars. Online company Alphabet generated roughly******2 billion U.S. dollars in annual revenues, the majority of it through advertising. Amazon is also the highest ranked U.S. online company based on market capitalization.

In 2024, state-owned Mexican oil company Petróleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, was the leading Mexican company based on net revenue, with roughly **** trillion Mexican pesos generated. Walmart de México ranked second that year, with a revenue of around ****** billion pesos. Robbed but still with the highest revenue With Pemex as Mexico's primary company, a significant hurdle emerged in the form of oil theft and its unlawful trade via pipeline perforations and barrel thefts, known as "Huachicoleo." The government promptly computed the daily economic losses stemming from the pilfered volume, amounting to nearly **** million Mexican pesos. Swiftly following his assumption of office, President AMLO allocated substantial resources to eliminate these crimes, harboring the belief of an ultimate triumph against them. Initially, reported figures showed a decline compared to the outset of his presidential term, being higher in the state of Hidalgo. However, recent data reflects a resurgence, attributed in part to project discontinuity. This lapse is attributed to suspected corruption and the advent of innovative methods for acquiring fuel. Oil industry competitors in Mexico Upon the acknowledgment of the country's largest oil company's inability to independently fulfill the entirety of the market demand, a decision was made to open up the oil market to private sector participation. However, this move has introduced increased competition that now poses challenges to Pemex's business and financial dynamics. While Pemex retains a substantial portion of oil wells in comparison to other entities within the energy sector, the predominant supply of this resource has been nearly balanced by contributions from the private sector. Moreover, the primary players in the distribution through gas stations are Mobil and G500, further intensifying the pressure on the leading company within the nation. This intensified competition makes it arduous for Pemex to effectively manage pricing and meet the population's demand.

In 2021, the leading publicly traded company headquartered in Florida was Publix Super Markets. That year, they had a revenue of **** billion U.S. dollars. Following Publix Super Markets was Jabil, which had a revenue of ***** billion U.S. dollars.

In 2024, the leading media company worldwide based on revenue was Alphabet Inc., with revenue of *** billion euros. In second place was Meta Platforms Inc, followed by Bytedance, Comcast Corporation, and Amazon. Media market - additional information The global entertainment and media market has a high value, considering it is made up of television, radio, internet, newspaper and in general technology-based companies. In 2024, this industry had an accumulated value of approximately *** trillion U.S. dollars. Projections for this market are optimistic as this industry is expected to increase its value over the next years, potentially reaching a revenue of *** trillion U.S. dollars by 2027. The first-ranking Alphabet had a revenue of over *** billion euros in 2024. The U.S. is the most important regional market for Alphabet, generating over ** percent of its revenue. Alphabet was followed by a fellow tech company, Meta, and by ByteDance, who owns TikTok. The majority of the leading media companies in the world are U.S.-based companies. Indeed, media has a major role in the daily life of Americans. On average, a consumer in the U.S. spent more than ** hours per day consuming major media.

In 2021, Apple was the largest publicly traded company in California based on revenue. That year, they had a revenue of ****** billion U.S. dollars. Alphabet, Chevron, Wells Fargo and Meta rounded out the top five publicly traded companies in California. Apple Apple is a multinational company headquartered in California. It was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. Known for their popular iPhones and Mac computers, they have further expanded into other products such as iPods, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Air Pods, and Apple Pay. It is now one of the world’s largest and most valuable companies. Their worldwide revenue has increased dramatically since 2004, with the largest share of their sales since 2012 coming from the Americas. Despite being one of the most successful technology companies, it has faced a lot of criticism from consumers. Some of the criticisms include tax avoidance, sweatshop use, and environmental destruction. Fortune 500 Companies In 2021, New York and California had the highest number of Fortune 500 companies, followed by Texas, Illinois, and Ohio. For New York, this can be attributed to its being the financial and cultural hub of the country. Fortune 500 Companies are ranked by Fortune magazine, which ranks the the top 500 companies in the United States based on revenue. Companies on this list are both publicly and privately held. The companies that get listed have changed over the years, for a variety of reasons such as company acquisitions, bankruptcies, and changes in the economy.

In 2024, Medtronic Inc. brought in a revenue of over 33.1 billion U.S. dollars, the largest of any company globally based on medical devices. The revenues of Johnson & Johnson amounted to 31.85 billion U.S. dollars in this year. Medtronic’s market share and future projections In 2022, Medtronic accounted for eight percent of the medical devices market worldwide. Additionally, the company held ten percent of the market share in the United States in the same year. By 2028, Medtronic is expected to generate 44.1 billion U.S. dollars in medical technology revenue, indicating substantial growth potential in the industry. Brand value Despite Medtronic's leadership in revenues, it's noteworthy that German-based Fresenius held the highest brand value among medical device companies in 2024, estimated at over 7.68 billion U.S. dollars. While Medtronic was ranked to have the second-highest brand value.

According to Forbes Global 2000 ranking released on June 12, 2025, Taiwan Semiconductor was the biggest public company in Taiwan, with a market value of around 708 billion U.S. dollars, up from 672 billion U.S. dollars in the previous years' evaluation. As a global foundry leader, Taiwan Semiconductor generated around 97 billion U.S. dollars in sales revenue in 2024.

The NYSE U.S. 100 Index tracks the largest U.S. companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. This statistic shows the leading 20 companies on the NYSE U.S. 100 Index by market capitalization. As of January 28, 2024 the multinational conglomerate company ****************** ranked as the first, with a market capitalization of over *** billion euros. This was followed by ********* and ***************, with market capitalizations amounting to *** billion and *** billion euros respectively. NYSE U.S. 100 Index vs. Nasdaq 100 Index The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq are the largest two stock exchanges in the world, but they differ in the kinds of companies they list. The NYSE is known to list stable and long-lasting firms, commonly referred to as “blue-chip” companies. In contrast, the Nasdaq is renowned for listing the world’s biggest companies, mainly from the tech industry. Similar to the NYSE U.S. 100 Index, the Nasdaq 100 Index tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange, including both U.S. and non-U.S. companies. The leader of the NYSE U.S. 100 index: Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway, the leader of the NYSE U.S. 100 Index, was also among the world's largest companies by revenue in 2023. The company is a multinational conglomerate and holding company with insurance as its core business and interests in other sectors such as railroad, utilities and energy, finance. In fact, Berkshire was the world's biggest insurance company by revenue in 2023. As a holding company, it has significant stakes in some of the world’s largest companies, including Apple, Bank of America and Coca-Cola. With its diverse background in various businesses and industries, Berkshire Hathaway had a total revenue of *** billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

As of July 16, 2025, Nvidia was the leading tech company by market capitalization globally at 4.16 trillion U.S. dollars. Nvidia became the first company to ever achieve the four trillion milestone, hitting this figure for the first time in July 2025. Microsoft ranked second at 3.76 trillion U.S. dollars. Nvidia's immense growth With a focus that began with origins in gaming, Nvidia's business strategy has been transformed by demand from data centers that sit at the heart of the AI boom. The company's chips have been favored to support in the training and running of a range of large language models, most notably in the development of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Apple is also among the leaders Since its foundation in a Californian garage in 1976, Apple has expanded massively, becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world. The company started its origins in the PC industry with the Macintosh, but soon entered other segments of the consumer electronics market. Today, the iPhone is the most popular Apple product, although Mac, iPad, wearables, and services also contribute to its high revenues. Aiming at innovation, Apple invests every year in research and development, spanning a wide array of technologies from AI through to extended reality.

Due to the ever-increasing amount of gathered and analyzed data, the global revenue of the market research industry has experienced strong growth in recent years. The North American market was the largest, valued at almost ** billion U.S. dollars in 2023, with the United States accounting for more than half of the global market. Market research industry The market research industry includes any organized activity aimed at gathering information about a specific industry, market, or group of customers. Market research relies on various types of services such as statistics, models, surveys, and, increasingly, big data analytics as a key instrument to meet customers’ needs and to direct investments in R&D and in new markets. In recent years, new technologies and new devices led to the emergence of new research methods such as big data analytics, mobile surveys, and behavioral economic models. Leading market research companies With a total revenue of roughly *** billion U.S dollars in 2023, Gartner was the leading market research company worldwide. Headquartered in Connecticut in the United States, Gartner is a global market research company operating worldwide. Their nearest global competitor, U.S. company IQVIA, reported *** billion U.S. dollars in global revenue in 2023.