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.

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.

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.

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.

As of January 2025, the largest company by market capitalization listed on the Euronext stock exchange was the French luxury goods company ****, which consists of ********************************. At this time, the company's market capital value was around *** billion euros and in second place was another French company, ********************, with *** billion euros. Euronext overview Headquartered in Paris and Amsterdam, the exchange operator Euronext stands out as one of the rest of the worldwide exchanges, Euronext has only been in operation for 25 years and was initially created through the merger of the Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris stock exchanges. Nevertheless, it has swiftly gained global recognition. Market performance monthly market capitalization values across European stock exchanges from 2019 to 2024, reflecting sustained growth over this period.

As of April 10, 2025, tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon dominated the S&P 500 index and were among only eight companies with a market capitalization exceeding *** ******** U.S. dollars in the U.S.

In 2009, Ecxxon Mobil Corp had a market capitalization of approximately 327.71 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 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.

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.

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.

As of Janaury 2025, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq - the two largest stock exchange operators in the United States - held a combined market capitalization for domestic listed companies of over ** trillion U.S. dollars. Both markets were almost evenly sized at this point in time - at approximately ** and ** trillion U.S. dollars, respectively. However, the Nasdaq has grown much quicker than the NYSE since January 2018, when their respective domestic market caps were ** and ** trillion U.S. dollars. Much of this can be attributed to the success of information technology stocks during the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as the Nasdaq is the traditional venue for companies operating in the tech sector.

With the growth of the Chinese economy, an increasing number of Chinese companies are appearing on the Forbes Global 2000 list. **************** was the Chinese company with the largest market value. Its market value amounted to around ****** billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Chinese companies on Forbes Global 2000 China had the second highest number of companies on this list, trailing behind the United States. Among the first ten public companies on the Global 2000 ranking, three were companies headquartered in China. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) ranked as first Chinese enterprise on Forbes Global 2000 ranking. The leading four Chinese companies on the 2024 ranking are all from the financial sector. The rise of China's tech-giants Besides companies from the financial sector and energy sector, China's biggest internet companies Tencent and Alibaba also had good rankings. Both companies have grown significantly over the past years due to the rapid development of the internet business sector and the huge market in China. However, they have fallen back in the global ranking recently due to Beijing's tightened control of the tech sector. Both companies are investing a lot in the application of artificial intelligence to improve their working efficiency and clients’ experience.

*********** was the leading company in the United Kingdom by market capitalization as of October 11, 2024. Headquartered in Cambridge, England, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company had a market capitalization of approximately ****** billion U.S. dollars.

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.

This statistic presents a ranking of the market capitalization of selected U.S. tech and internet companies in 2006, and from 2014 to 2020. Apple's market cap soared from 461.41 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 to 1.53 trillion dollars in 2020. Apple's market cap pushed the company ahead of last year's leader Microsoft.

Public offerings of tech and internet companies

A public offering is the offering of securities of a company or a similar corporation to the public. Generally, the securities are to be listed on a stock exchange. The initial public offering (IPO) of a company occurs when a company offers its shares for the first time for public ownership and trading.

Hardware companies such as Apple or IBM have been traded publicly for a while but younger, online-based companies such as Google or most notably Facebook and most recently, Snap Inc. have been generating a lot of buzz surrounding their IPOs and subsequent stock prices. Facebook’s initial public offering was intensely hyped over months with projections of a 100 billion US dollar valuation but it dwindled down to a range of 60 to 75 billion US dollars prior to the listing.

Other tech stock performances have been more stable – both online retailer Amazon and search and digital advertising giant Google’s - now Alphabet's - shares have been on a more upwards trend. The most impressive development however came from Apple which totally changed its stock performance after the 2008 introduction of the iPhone. Since then, the company has been catapulted to the top of the smartphone market, multiplying its market capitalization as well as regularly being ranked as one of the most valuable brands worldwide.

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.

The Nasdaq stock exchange has experienced remarkable growth in its domestic market capitalization, reaching a peak of 30.77 trillion U.S. dollars in January 2025. This milestone underscores the exchange's significant role in the global financial landscape and its ability to attract and retain high-value companies. As the second-largest stock exchange operator in the United States, Nasdaq's performance serves as a key indicator of overall market health and investor confidence.

The Euronext 100 index includes the largest and most liquid blue-chip companies traded on Euronext exchanges. As of July 2023, the leading company on the index was the French multinational conglomerage LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), with a market capitalization of 463 billion U.S. dollars. Second in the ranking came the Dutch multinational coporation ASML Holding, followed by French personal care company L'Oréal.

Four out of the 20 largest companies inside of Germany's DAX stock exchange index reached a market cap of over 100 billion euros as of March 19, 2024. The largest company listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange was German multinational software company SAP, with a market capitalization of over 200 billion euros at this time. They were followed by German automation company Siemens with 158.05 billion euros.