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 1989, the Industrial Bank of Japan had a market capitalization of approximately 104.29 billion U.S dollars, making it the largest company in the world at the time. Six of the ten largest companies worldwide in 1989 were based in Japan while the remaining four were American, highlighting the economic dominance of these two countries in the late 1980s.

In 2009, Ecxxon Mobil Corp had a market capitalization of approximately ****** billion U.S dollars, making it the largest company in the world at the time. Five of the ten largest companies worldwide in 2009 were based in the United States, with three from Europe and two from China.

In 2024, Netflix was the second-largest media company ranked by market capitalization - at ***** billion U.S. dollars. At the same time, Apple outperformed the top media companies by a large margin, with a market cap of over *** trillion U.S. dollars that year. Disney closed the top three with *** billion U.S. dollars in market capitalization.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the largest stock exchange in the world, with an equity market capitalization of almost ** trillion U.S. dollars as of June 2025. The following three exchanges were the NASDAQ, PINK Exchange, and the Frankfurt Exchange. What is a stock exchange? A stock exchange is a marketplace where stockbrokers, traders, buyers, and sellers can trade in equities products. The largest exchanges have thousands of listed companies. These companies sell shares of their business, giving the general public the opportunity to invest in them. The oldest stock exchange worldwide is the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, founded in the late sixteenth century. Other functions of a stock exchange Since these are publicly traded companies, every firm listed on a stock exchange has had an initial public offering (IPO). The largest IPOs can raise billions of dollars in equity for the firm involved. Related to stock exchanges are derivatives exchanges, where stock options, futures contracts, and other derivatives can be traded.

As of May 2025, Amazon was the biggest internet company worldwide with a market cap of over ************ U.S. dollars Second-ranked Alphabet had a market capitalization of **** trillion U.S. dollars. The end of the 1990s in the United States saw the rise of a great number of internet companies, also called online companies or a variety of the name “dot com,” where the “.com” domain is derived from the word commercial. At the time, such startups were merely riding the wave of early internet business, but had little capital and perhaps one good idea. Few companies have survived the burst of the dot com bubble and even fewer have managed to become internationally successful. A few notable exceptions are American companies such as Google (founded in 1998), Amazon (founded in 1994) or eBay Inc. (founded in 1995), and the Chinese online giant Alibaba (founded in 1998), which have come to be some of the largest internet companies in the world. One of the largest internet companies worldwide is currently Alphabet, the parent company of Google, with a market capitalization of **** trillion U.S. dollars as of May 2025. Having started as a PhD project at Stanford University, the Google project slowly gained traction and is now the number one search engine in the world, with a market share of ** percent on the search engine market. Due to a number of high profile acquisitions, Google has expanded its portfolio beyond search, to include the video content sharing site YouTube, the digital app platform Google Play Store, the webmail service Gmail and the web browser Google Chrome, to only name a few. In October 2015, Google reorganized itself into a newly created parent company, the multinational conglomerate Alphabet Inc. The biggest internet companies in terms of their workforce are currently Amazon, Alphabet and Meta.

As of May 23, 2025, Microsoft was the leading tech company by market capitalization globally at 3.38 trillion U.S. dollars. Nvidia ranked second at 3.24 trillion U.S. dollars. Tech company stocks were impacted through 2025 as a result of various global tariff threats by the United States government. Apple 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. 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.

The value of global domestic equity market increased from 65.04 trillion U.S. dollars in 2013 to 124.63 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. The United States was by far the leading country with the largest share of total world stocks as of 2024. Global market capitalization in different regions The market capitalization of domestic companies listed varied across different regions of the world. As of Decmber 2024, the Americas region had the largest domestic equity market, totaling 62 trillion U.S. dollars. This region is home to the NYSE and Nasdaq, which are the two largest stock exchange operators in the world. The market capitalization of these two exchanges alone exceeded 60 billion U.S. dollars as of January 2025, larger than the total market capitalization in the Asia-Pacific, and in the EMEA regions in the same period. Largest Stock Exchanges in Latin America As of December 2024, the B3 (Brasil Bolsa Balcao) was the biggest stock exchange in Latin America in terms of market capitalization and the second-largest in terms of number of listed companies. Following the B3 were the Mexican Stock Exchange and the Santiago Stock Exchange in Chile. The most valuable company in Latin America is listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange: Fomento Económico Mexicano, a multinational beverage and retail company headquartered in Monterrey, had market cap of 177 billion U.S. dollars as of March 2025.

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 June 2023, Tesla was the leading company in the global energy storage sector based on market capitalization. The United States-based company generated over *** billions from its energy generation and storage sector in 2023.

In the second quarter of 2024, Spotify became the biggest music company globally in terms of market capitalization share, reaching **** percent. According to the source, the Swedish music giant managed to overtake its competitor Universal Music Group, whose share stood at **** percent.

As of March 2025, **************************, a multinational beverage and retail company headquartered in Monterey, was the largest public company in Latin America, with a market capitalization of nearly *** billion U.S. dollars. ************ follows with a market cap of about ** billion U.S. dollars, while ********, a Brazilian energy company, takes the third spot with a market cap of ** billion U.S. dollars.

As of January 2022, the largest paytech company globally was Visa, with a total market capitalization of *** billion U.S. dollars. Visa was followed by Mastercard and PayPal with *** billion U.S. dollars and *** billion U.S. dollars of market captalization, respectively. The top 10 paytech companies had a collective market cap of over *** trillion U.S. dollars.

The Nasdaq 100 Index tracks the largest domestic and international non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. This statistic shows the leading 20 companies on the Nasdaq 100 Index by market capitalization. As of January 2025, the American technology company ***** ranked first, with a market capitalization of over ***** trillion euros. This was followed by ******, with a market capitalization amounting to *** trillion euros.

As of July 2024, the market capitalization of ******************** amounted to *** billion Canadian dollars, which placed the company at the top of the ranking. What is market capitalization? Market capitalization is one of the measures of the financial strength of a company. It shows the value of shares outstanding of a publicly traded company. It is basically calculated by multiplying the number of shares traded on a stock exchange by the price of a single share. Worldwide rankings In the United States, *************** had the largest market cap among the U.S. banks, amounting to ****** billion U.S. dollars as of January 2025. The bank was also the leader in the global ranking, followed by ***************, and **********************************************.

Vinci, a concessions and construction company with headquarters in France, was in 2023 the construction company with the highest market capitalization in the world. While the Larsen & Toubro Ltd. had a market cap of ** billion U.S. dollars, Vinci's market cap amounted to ** billion U.S. dollars.

******* was the leading company in Spain by market capitalization as of October 10, 2024. Their market cap amounted to approximately ****** billion U.S. dollars at that time. ******* was founded in 1985 and emerged as one of the biggest textile companies in the world. On the other hand, Iberdrola was the second largest company by market cap in the country, reaching ***** billion U.S. dollars.

The market capitalization of companies in the United States was almost six times than that of China as of June 2025, making up a large share of the world's total market capitalization. Listed companies in the U.S. had a total market capitalization of nearly ** trillion U.S. dollars - against ** trillion U.S. dollars recorded by China. Japan followed as the next country in the ranking of nearly ***** trillion U.S. dollars.

As of February 2025, the Irish-headquartered industrial gases and chemicals company Linde reached a market capitalization of nearly *** billion U.S. dollars, which made it the world's leading chemical company based on market cap. Based on revenue, however, BASF was the top chemical company worldwide.

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.