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.

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.

The average for 2022 based on 74 countries was 1244.55 billion U.S. dollars. The highest value was in the USA: 40297.98 billion U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Bermuda: 0.21 billion U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1975 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Over-the-counter stock historical market value ranking (GreTai Securities Market)

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.

Analysis of ‘6,000 Largest Companies Ranked by Market Cap’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/prasertk/6000-largest-companies-ranked-by-market-cap on 13 February 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Context

Largest Companies by Market Cap.

Acknowledgements

Data source: https://companiesmarketcap.com/ Cover image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/high-rise-buildings-443383/

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

As of December 31, 2024, the largest bank in the world in terms of market capitalization was the U.S.-based J*************. The American banking giant's market cap exceeded *** billion U.S. dollars, which was significantly higher than ***************'s, which ranked second with a market cap of approximately ****** billion U.S. dollars. ************** was also the largest bank in the United States in terms of total assets but ranked only fifth globally, behind four Chinese banks. What is market capitalization? Market capitalization, also known as stock market value, is the total value of issued shares of a publicly traded company. It is equal to the share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. It applies only to publicly traded companies or companies that have made their stock market debut, also known as an initial public offering, or IPO. Due to the nature of the capitalist system and the practice of buying and selling stocks in public markets, market capitalization can be used as a proxy for the wider public’s opinion of a company’s net worth, making it therefore a determining factor in calculating other theoretical values of companies and their stocks, for example, stock valuation. How were banks affected by the coronavirus outbreak? The outbreak of the coronavirus left no industries unaffected and had a significant impact on the global financial markets. This can be seen in the banking industry, as the market capitalization of the largest banks worldwide dropped markedly between December 2019 and March 2020. For the largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, it was not until February 2021 that the market capitalization saw pre-pandemic figures again.

The average for 2022 based on 14 countries was 103.09 billion U.S. dollars. The highest value was in South Africa: 1171.75 billion U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in the Seychelles: 1.22 billion U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1975 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

When looking at the leading food and drink service chains by market value, as ranked by Forbes in its 2024 "Global 2000" list of the largest companies worldwide, McDonald's came out on top. The fast food chain accounted for a market value of approximately 196.3 billion U.S. dollars that year. Meanwhile, second in the ranking was Chipotle Mexican Grill, with a market value of 88.26 billion U.S. dollars.

Key information about Vietnam Market Capitalization

• Vietnam Market Capitalization accounted for 220.052 USD bn in Feb 2025, compared with a percentage of 216.705 USD bn in the previous month
• Vietnam Market Capitalization is updated monthly, available from Jan 2010 to Feb 2025
• The data reached an all-time high of 255.722 USD bn in Mar 2022 and a record low of 21.787 USD bn in Dec 2011

CEIC converts monthly Market Capitalization into USD. Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange provides Market Capitalization in local currency. The State Bank of Vietnam period end market exchange rate is used for currency conversions. Market Capitalization covers Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange only, which is the main stock market in Vietnam.

Key information about India Market Capitalization: % of GDP

• India Market Capitalization accounted for 133.5 % of its Nominal GDP in Dec 2024, compared with a percentage of 120.9 % in the previous year
• India Market Capitalization: % Nominal GDP is updated yearly, available from Dec 1993 to Dec 2024
• The data reached an all-time high of 146.4 % in Dec 2007 and a record low of 23.0 % in Dec 2001

CEIC calculates annual Market Capitalization as % of Nominal GDP from monthly Market Capitalization and annual Nominal GDP. BSE Limited provides Market Capitalization in local currency. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation provides Nominal GDP in local currency. Nominal GDP is reported in annual frequency, ending in March of each year.


Further information about India Market Capitalization: % of GDP

• In the latest reports, SENSEX recorded a daily P/E ratio of 20.6 in Mar 2025
• Sensitive 30 (Sensex) closed at 73,198.1 points in Feb 2025

Key information about Saudi Arabia Market Capitalization

• Saudi Arabia Market Capitalization accounted for 2,667.273 USD bn in Feb 2025, compared with a percentage of 2,740.562 USD bn in the previous month
• Saudi Arabia Market Capitalization is updated monthly, available from Dec 2005 to Feb 2025
• The data reached an all-time high of 3,325.689 USD bn in Apr 2022 and a record low of 218.463 USD bn in Feb 2009

CEIC converts monthly Market Capitalization into USD. Saudi Exchange provides Market Capitalization in local currency. Saudi Central Bank period end market exchange rate is used for currency conversions. Since January 2017, the IFRS accounting standard for all listed companies and the Global Industry Classification Standard has been adopted.

Fintech companies headquartered in the ************* and ***** lead the ranking of the largest fintech companies worldwide by market capitalization. As of February 2025, the two largest companies were the payment companies Visa and Mastercard, both headquartered in the United States, with a market capitalization of roughly ***** and ***** billion U.S. dollars, respectively. Shopify ranked third, and Intuit ranked fourth with a market capitalization of *** billion U.S. dollars. European-headquartered fintechs, such as Adyen and Checkout.com, were also among the top fintech companies by market capitalization. United States: the land of unicorns The fintech sector is famous for being filled with successful companies that have turned into unicorns. The term unicorn refers to a privately held startup company that has a valuation that exceeds *** billion U.S. dollars. The United States had not only the largest fintech companies, but also the highest number of fintech unicorns. In addition, ***** out of the *** most valuable fintech unicorns were headquartered in the United States. Mobile payment trends and market penetration Mobile payment solutions are gaining traction globally, with some services showing strong regional preferences. Venmo, a U.S.-based digital wallet owned by PayPal, demonstrated an ***** percent year-on-year growth in total payment volume, reaching ** billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2024. While Venmo's market share is highest in the United States, it has also gained significant traction in Latin America, with nearly **** percent of Venezuelan merchants integrating Venmo into their websites. This trend highlights the growing importance of mobile payment solutions in both developed and emerging markets.

In 2023, Koç Holding became the biggest public company in Turkey, with a market value of over 19 billion U.S. dollars. Turkish Airlines and Ford Otosan occupied the second and third places in the ranking, reaching a market value of around 14 and 13 billion U.S. dollars, respectively.

Data from Fortune 500's 2023 ranking.
Includes data on top 1000 companies w/ additional info (Stock symbol/*ticker*, CEO name).

Update (New dataset): 2024 Fortune 1000 Companies

What Is the Fortune 1000?

From Investopedia:

The Fortune 1000 is an annual list of the 1000 largest American companies maintained by the popular magazine Fortune Fortune ranks the eligible companies by revenue generated from core operations, discounted operations, and consolidated subsidiaries Since revenue is the basis for inclusion, every company is authorized to operate in the United States and files a 10-K or comparable financial statement with a government agency -- .

Project Background

Fortune magazine publishes this list every year and some lists can be found from different sources. From looking at this year's available datasets, some features were missing or could not be found. This was built from scraping the standard features as well as what's included on Company Info (such as CEO, Ticker and website) from the Fortune magazine website. Details on how the data was generated can be found on this notebook where a few of the features were also visualized.

The source code from the 2023 fortune 500 Ranking includes 1000 companies. A reference page (slug) to additional info is included for each companies which were also scrapped to complete the dataset.

The Dataset

Available formats: csv, parquet

Features are follows:

[Note: References to datatypes are relevant when using the parquet file; Labels refer to the original website names]

• Rank
    dtype: int64; Label: Rank
• Company
    dtype: object; Label: Company
• Ticker
    dtype: object; Label: Ticker
• Sector
    dtype: category; Label: Sector
• Industry
    dtype: category; Label: Industry
• Profitable
    dtype: category; Label: Profitable
• Founder_is_CEO
    dtype: category; Label: Founder is CEO
• FemaleCEO
    dtype: category; Label: Female CEO
• Growth_in_Jobs
    dtype: category; Label: Growth in Jobs
• Change_in_Rank
    dtype: float64; Label: Change in Rank (Full 1000)
• Gained_in_Rank
    dtype: category; Label: Gained in Rank
• Dropped_in_Rank
    dtype: category; Label: Dropped in Rank
• Newcomer_to_the_Fortune500
    dtype: category; Label: Newcomer to the Fortune 500
• Global500
    dtype: category; Label: Global 500
• Best_Companies
    dtype: category; Label: Best Companies
• Number_of_employees
    dtype: int64; Label: Employees
• MarketCap_March31_M
    dtype: float64; Label: Market Value — as of March 31, 2023 ($M)
• Revenues_M
    dtype: int64; Label: Revenues ($M)
• RevenuePercentChange
    dtype: float64; Label: Revenue Percent Change
• Profits_M
    dtype: int64; Label: Profits ($M)
• ProfitsPercentChange
    dtype: float64; Label: Profits Percent Change
• Assets_M
    dtype: int64; Label: Assets ($M)
• CEO
    dtype: object; Label: CEO
• Country
    dtype: category; Label: Country
• HeadquartersCity
    dtype: object; Label: Headquarters City
• HeadquartersState
    dtype: category; Label: Headquarters State
• Website
    dtype: object; Label: Website
• CompanyType
    dtype: category; Label: Company type
• Footnote
    dtype: object; Label: Footnote
• MarketCap_Updated_M
    dtype: float64; Label: Market value ($M)
• Updated
    dtype: datetime64[ns]; Label: Updated Click to add a cell.

The average for 2022 based on 72 countries was 33.12 percent. The highest value was in China: 283.04 percent and the lowest value was in Luxembourg: 0.09 percent. The indicator is available from 1975 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

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.

Reliance Industries topped the 2023 ranking of the conglomerates with the highest market value worldwide. The conglomerate beat out major players such as Danaher, Honeywell International, 3M, Raytheon Technologies, and Siemens. Rise of Asian conglomerates European and U.S. companies remained dominant in the 2023 ranking, but Asian conglomerates are on the rise. Reliance Industries of India was the leading publicly traded Asian conglomerate in terms of market value, based on closing prices as of May 5, 2023. CK Hutchinson of Hong Kong made this year's ranking. For many years, this company had been managed by Sir Li Ka-shing, who is the **** richest individual in the world. CK Hutchison is the parent company of the Hutchison Asia Telecom Group, Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, A.S. Watson Group, Husky Energy, and Hutchison Port Holdings, one of the largest marine terminal operators globally. Softbank, LG Chem, Itochu, and Mitsui were among the Asian conglomerates that made it into the top 20.

Analysis of ‘China Largest Companies’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/yamqwe/china-largest-companiese on 28 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

About this dataset

From the Forbes Global 2000 list​ last updated on May 2013. Forbes publishes an annual list of the world's 2000 largest publicly listed corporations. ​The Forbes Global 2000 weigh​s​ sales, profits, assets and market value​ equally​ so companies can be ranked by size. Figures for all companies are in US dollars.

​Source: Economy Watch

This dataset was created by Finance and contains around 100 samples along with Profits ($billion), Market Value ($billion), technical information and other features such as: - Sales ($billion) - Assets ($billion) - and more.

How to use this dataset

• Analyze Global Rank in relation to Profits ($billion)
• Study the influence of Market Value ($billion) on Sales ($billion)
• More datasets

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit Finance

Start A New Notebook!

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

When looking at the leading hotel and resort chains by market value, as ranked by Forbes in its 2024 "Global 2000" list of the largest companies worldwide, Marriott International Inc. came out on top. The hotel chain accounted for a market value of approximately 67.9 billion U.S. dollars that year. Meanwhile, second in the ranking was competitor Hilton Worldwide Holdings at 51.06 billion U.S. dollars.