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 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 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.

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.

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.

Astrazeneca was the leading pharmaceutical company in the United Kingdom as of March 7, 2024, with a market capitalization amounting to approximately ***** billion U.S. dollars. GlaxoSmithKline followed as the second largest pharma company in the country, with market capitalization of nearly **** billion U.S. dollars. Examining the development of the FTSE 100 Index, which was launched in January 1984 with a base level of 1,000, increased by more than sevenfold to date. What is the FTSE 100 index? The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, commonly known as the "Footsie", is the most widely recognized stock market index in the United Kingdom. It is made up of the 100 largest blue-chip companies on the London Stock Exchange. Companies from various sectors, such as healthcare, consumer goods, and energy, are included in the index, as are leading banks of the United Kingdom, such as HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, and Barclays. Moreover, it can be seen as a reflection of the investment climate in the United Kingdom. What is not included in the FTSE 100 Index? Most notably, the FTSE 100 Index, like most indices, is not adjusted for inflation. While inflation in the United Kingdom has gone down dramatically since 2023, it might be useful to adjust the historic figures on the index when comparing historic data to current levels. This is especially important when the index seems to have increased by a few percentage points because inflation may have increased at a faster rate than stock prices.

In 2023, Attijariwafa Bank was the largest company and financial institution in Morocco based on market capitalization. Its outstanding shares had a market value of around 8.34 billion U.S. dollars. The following leading enterprises in Morocco were telecommunication companies and financial institutions. Maroc Telecom had a market capitalization of roughly 7.31 billion U.S. dollars, while the Banque Centrale Populaire was valued at 4.5 billion U.S. dollars.

Morocco’s titans of industry: Attijariwafa Bank and Maroc Telecom

Attijariwafa Bank was the largest company in Morocco in 2023. The financial institution showed a remarkable increase in net income from 2020 to 2022. Furthermore, Attijariwafa Bank had 3,614 bank branches in Morocco and numerous branches in several African regions. In its turn, Maroc Telecom was the second largest company and preeminent telecommunications firm in Morocco and holds most telecommunication towers in the nation. In 2021, the annual revenue of Maroc Telecom stood at 35.8 billion Moroccan dirhams (around 3.55 billion U.S. dollars). However, it represented a decrease from the previous year when the company recorded a peak revenue of 36.7 billion Moroccan dirhams (3.64 billion U.S. dollars).

Expanding the perspective to the African continent

Taking a step back to compare Africa’s leading companies of 2023, both Attijariwafa Bank and Maroc Telecom made it to the list, ranking 14th and 19th, respectively. In 2020, as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, large companies in Africa primarily sought financial solutions from commercial banks. According to a survey, 60 percent of the companies surveyed reported using commercial banks as their primary funding source.

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 **********************************************.

In 2025, stock markets in the United States accounted for roughly ** percent of world stocks. The next largest country by stock market share was China, followed by the European Union as a whole. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the NASDAQ are the largest stock exchange operators worldwide. What is a stock exchange? The first modern publicly traded company was the Dutch East Industry Company, which sold shares to the general public to fund expeditions to Asia. Since then, groups of companies have formed exchanges in which brokers and dealers can come together and make transactions in one space. Stock market indices group companies trading on a given exchange, giving an idea of how they evolve in real time. Appeal of stock ownership Over half of adults in the United States are investing money in the stock market. Stocks are an attractive investment because the possible return is higher than offered by other financial instruments.

ExxonMobil has the highest market capitalization of any oil and gas producer worldwide. As of June 18, 2024, the United States-based company had a market cap of ****** billion U.S. dollars. Big Oil's place among the ten leading oil and gas companies Of the five largest companies in this ranking, three were considered Big Oil companies. Meanwhile, the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, which operates the world's largest oil refinery complex and is also involved in retail and telecommunications, ranked fourth, with a market cap of more than *** billion U.S. dollars. KPI's of top oil & gas companies While there has been little change in which companies are counted among the largest within their industry, their ranking varies depending on the metric used. Although ExxonMobil has often ranked first in terms of market capitalization, state-owned enterprises such as China's Sinopec are more likely to be found on top of a list of leading oil and gas companies worldwide based on revenue. State-owned enterprises such as Gazprom and PetroChina are furthermore the leading oil and gas companies worldwide based on employment. In 2023 and 2024, their respective workforce consisted of around ******* employees.

*** was the leading company in Germany by market capitalization as of October 11, 2024, with almost *** billion U.S. dollars. *** was established in 1972 in Germany and is the largest software company in Europe. ******* and **************** followed, each with market capitalizations of approximately ****** and ****** billion U.S. dollars, respectively.

************ was the leading domestic company in Japan based on market capitalization, which amounted to around **** trillion Japanese yen in June 2025. ****************************** ranked second with a market capitalization of about **** trillion yen. With an aggregate market capitalization of over *** trillion yen in 2024, the Tokyo Stock Exchange is one of the largest stock exchanges in the world.

The top medical technology companies globally include big name companies such as General Electric, Philips, and Medtronic. As of 2021, the leading medical technology company based on market share was Medtronic (U.S.). At that time, Medtronic held *** percent of the overall medical technology market. The company’s hold on medical technology is projected to increase slightly to *** percent by 2024. Medical technology industry The global medical technology industry includes different types of technology that are broadly categorized as medical devices, in vitro diagnostics and digital health solutions. The total medical technology revenue has been increasing in recent years and is expected to increase dramatically by the year 2024. Research and development in the industry is also gaining ground and has experienced some of the largest growth in spending from 2015 to 2016, with significant growth expected in the future. Company spotlight: Medtronic Among the various medical technology companies, Medtronic is among the top in many measures. Medtronic produces medical products and devices for cardiac and vascular disease, minimally invasive therapies, restorative therapies and diabetes. In 2017, Medtronic was the top medical technology company among those that produce cardiac devices. The company beat out other competitors such as Abbott and Boston Scientific by a significant percentage of the market share. Medtronic’s total revenue worldwide has been increasing significantly in recent years and in the company’s fiscal year 2022 had reached an all time high.

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.

As of March 2025, Google represented 79.1 percent of the global online search engine market on desktop devices. Despite being much ahead of its competitors, this represents the lowest share ever recorded by the search engine in these devices for over two decades. Meanwhile, its long-time competitor Bing accounted for 12.21 percent, as tools like Yahoo and Yandex held shares of over 2.9 percent each. Google and the global search market Ever since the introduction of Google Search in 1997, the company has dominated the search engine market, while the shares of all other tools has been rather lopsided. The majority of Google revenues are generated through advertising. Its parent corporation, Alphabet, was one of the biggest internet companies worldwide as of 2024, with a market capitalization of 2.02 trillion U.S. dollars. The company has also expanded its services to mail, productivity tools, enterprise products, mobile devices, and other ventures. As a result, Google earned one of the highest tech company revenues in 2024 with roughly 348.16 billion U.S. dollars. Search engine usage in different countries Google is the most frequently used search engine worldwide. But in some countries, its alternatives are leading or competing with it to some extent. As of the last quarter of 2023, more than 63 percent of internet users in Russia used Yandex, whereas Google users represented little over 33 percent. Meanwhile, Baidu was the most used search engine in China, despite a strong decrease in the percentage of internet users in the country accessing it. In other countries, like Japan and Mexico, people tend to use Yahoo along with Google. By the end of 2024, nearly half of the respondents in Japan said that they had used Yahoo in the past four weeks. In the same year, over 21 percent of users in Mexico said they used Yahoo.

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 May 2025, the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca was the leading company listed on the London Exchange (LSE), with a market capitalization of 159 billion British pounds. This made them the largest of all companies listed on the LSE. Seen as the heart of the global financial community, the London Stock Exchange is the second-largest stock market in Europe and ranks eighth globally. Key information The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is among the largest stock market operators globally and ranks 11th in terms of the oldest stock exchanges in existence, with 224 years of operation as of 2025. Performance after Covid The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound effect on the global economy, causing considerable volatility on the stock market. The London Stock Exchange (LSE) saw a notable decline in the market capitalization value of its listed companies, reaching its lowest value in March 2020 at approximately three trillion British pounds in correlation with a surge in the average daily number of trades, which peaked at over two billion. Following this initial reaction, the LSE observed a decrease in the average daily active traders, alongside a gradual recovery in the market capitalization of the listed companies.

With a market cap of over two trillion U.S. dollars, Amazon ranks first among the leading large cap e-commerce companies worldwide. According to March 2025 data, the e-commerce giant ranks ahead of Alibaba and Pinduoduo. During the measured period, Alibaba's market cap amounted to over 300 billion U.S. dollars. Amazon is one of the most valuable brands worldwide Ranked fourth out of the leading brands worldwide, Amazon continues to grow, with its brand value estimated at 577 billion U.S. dollars. Amazon.com was founded in 1994 and has since become one of the world’s largest e-commerce retailers selling goods like books, clothing, electronics, and even having its own subscription service, Amazon Prime. In 2024, the company achieved a net sales revenue of 638 billion U.S. dollars, showing its continued profitability. Despite its worldwide popularity, Amazon’s annual net sales revenue is remarkably higher in North America (388 billion U.S. dollars) when compared to how the company performs internationally (143 billion U.S. dollars). A closer look at Amazon's third-party sellers Most of Amazon's units (62 percent) are sold by third-party (3P) sellers, meaning independent sellers who list and sell products on the marketplace but do not sell the products to the platform itself. In 2024, Amazon made 156 billion U.S. dollars in global net revenue from 3P sales alone. However, in Amazon's biggest market, the United States, most sellers use a hybrid model (74 percent), this includes both 3P and first-party (1P) sellers, with the latter being a business or manufacturer that sells its products directly to a retailer or platform.

As of early March 2025, Eli Lilly had a market cap of over *** billion U.S. dollars and thus was the leader among big pharma companies based on market capitalization. The massive rise of Eli Lilly's market value, which started in 2023, is based in a large part on its strong pipeline. This statistic depicts the top 10 biotech and pharmaceutical companies worldwide based on market capitalization as of 2025. Biotech and pharmaceutical companiesPharmaceutical companies are best known for manufacturing pharmaceutical drugs. These drugs have the aim to diagnose, to cure, to treat, or to prevent diseases. The pharmaceutical sector represents a huge industry, with the global pharmaceutical market being worth more than *** trillion U.S. dollars. Among the best known top global pharmaceutical players are Pfizer, Merck and Johnson & Johnson from the U.S., Novartis and Roche from Switzerland, Sanofi from France, etc. Most of these companies are involved not only in pure pharmaceutical business, but also manufacture medical technology and consumer health products, vaccines, etc. For example, Johnson & Johnson makes most of its revenues through medical devices, diagnostics and consumer health products. There are both pure play biotechnology companies and pharmaceutical companies which, among other products, also produce biotech products within their biotechnological divisions. Most of the leading global pharmaceutical companies have biopharmaceutical divisions. Although not a pure play biotech firm, Roche from Switzerland is among the leaders by revenues from biotech therapies worldwide. In contrast, California-based company Amgen is the world’s largest pure-play biotech company. Amgen made over ** billion U.S. dollars of revenue in 2024. Biotech companies use biotechnology to generate their products, most often medical drugs or agricultural genetic engineering. The latter segment was dominated by Monsanto, nowadays a part of Bayer CropScience. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity defines biotechnology as follows: "Any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use." In fact, biotechnology is thousands of years old, used in agriculture, food manufacturing and medicine.