Between 2019 and 2023, oil and gas explorers and producers logged the highest total revenue worldwide, reaching 5.3 trillion U.S. dollars. Life and health insurance carriers followed behind.

With over 670 billion U.S. dollars in revenue, Walmart topped the ranking of the hundred largest companies globally, followed by Amazon. Walmart was also the largest company in the world based on its number of employees, with some 2.1 million all over the world. Largest corporations based on revenue - additional information The concept of revenue itself might slightly differ depending on country or even from one company to another. It usually refers to the income resulted from normal business activities, such as the sale of goods and services to customers. Walmart The American-based multinational corporation Walmart was founded in 1962 and currently operates over 10,600 stores worldwide, out of which 4,600 are in the United States alone. In 2024, Walmart was ranked the third most valuable retail brand in the world, with a brand value of about 60 billion U.S. dollars. Follow this link to get access to the top 500 companies from all industries list.

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.

This statistic shows the share of economic sectors in the global gross domestic product (GDP) from 2013 to 2023. In 2022, agriculture contributed 4.25 percent, industry contributed approximately 27.22 percent and services contributed about 61.76 percent to the global gross domestic product. See global GDP for comparison.

As of January 2024, the most profitable industry in the United States was money center banking, with a profit margin of 30.89 percent. The profit margin of the regional banking was not too far off, with a net profit margin of 29.67.

In 2024, Microsoft generated approximately, 2780 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 1780 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.

As of 2024, the U.S. region accounted for 38 percent of the global information and communication technology (ICT) market share. China and the EU ranked as the second and third biggest regions, each accounting for a market share of over 10 percent. ICT Industry Overview Ranking as one of the largest industries in the world, the ICT market is forecasted to reach a size of 5.5 trillion dollars in 2022, and almost six trillion by 2023. The continuous growth serves as another reminder of the ever-increasing prevalence and importance of technology in today’s society. In general, growth in traditional tech spending over the next few years will be driven foremost by big data and analytics, social, mobile, and AR/VR and robotics, ranks as the fastest growing category. Notably, next-generation security technologies that provide integrated security solutions will also be an area of investment in the future.

In 2023, the education and health services industry employed the largest number of people in the United States. That year, about 36,4 million people were employed in the education and health services industry.

Education and Health Services Industry

Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States has started to fall behind in both education and the health care industry. Although the U.S. spends the most money in both these industries, they do not see their desired results in comparison to other nations. Furthermore, in the education services industry, there was a relatively significant wage gap between men and women. In 2019, men earned about 1,070 U.S. dollars per week on average, while their female counterparts only earned 773 U.S. dollars per week.

Employment in the U.S.

The 2008 financial crisis was a large-scale event that impacted the entire world, especially the United States. The economy started to improve after 2010, and the number of people employed in the United States has been steadily increasing since then. However, the number of people employed in the education sector is expected to slowly decrease until 2026. The overall unemployment rate in the United States has decreased since 2010 as well.

The German chemical company BASF was ranked number one in the ranking of the world's leading chemical companies based on revenue, generating a revenue of approximately 68.03 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Revenue of the top chemical companies worldwide Chemical companies produce and develop industrial chemicals through the conversion of raw materials –organic and inorganic - into a wide variety of products. Chemical production is classified into two separate categories. There are specialty batch manufacturers that produce more expensive chemicals that are less commonly used within the chemical market. These performance chemicals are often produced by smaller manufacturers. On the other hand, commodity manufacturers tend to produce a large volume of basic and inexpensive compounds. The production of organic polymers for plastics, fibers, and elastomers is a rapidly growing sector of the chemical industry. Leading chemical manufacturing countries The chemical manufacturing industry in the United States is quite prominent, with companies such as Dow, DuPont, and LyondellBasell Industries. The chemical sector in Europe is also very prominent, as demonstrated by the fact that it represents a great proportion of their manufacturing trade surplus. Europe (and the European Union) is one of the largest chemical trading regions in the world. With Germany accounting for the largest share of total EU chemical revenue. Three of Germany’s chemical companies are considered some of the largest in the world. German companies BASF and Bayer are consistently among the largest earning chemical companies in the world. BASF operates on a global scale and maintains its segmental operations in chemicals, materials, surface technologies, nutrition and care, industrial solutions, and agricultural solutions. With headquarters around the world, Bayer is known for marketing heroin in the past and branding aspirin.

In 2023, the leading market research company in terms of global research revenue was Gartner, generating approximately 5.9 billion U.S. dollars. In the same year, American company IQVIA accrued roughly 5.6 billion U.S. dollars. Market research companies - global players Market research is an important business strategy involving the gathering of information about an organization’s target market. In terms of global research revenue, American company Gartner was the leading market research company worldwide. Headquartered in the United States, the number of employees working for the company totaled 20,237 people in 2023. The sixth largest market research company in terms of global research revenue was Kantar. Kantar Group is a UK-based international network of 12 companies, including Millward Brown and IMRB International. In 2022, the research revenue of Kantar amounted to approximately three billion U.S. dollars. Another European leader, and ranked seventh in the global ranking, was Ipsos. The company had a research revenue of over 2.5 billion U.S. dollars. The largest share of market research revenue made by Ipsos was generated in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2023. United States dominant in a global market The global revenue of the market research industry reached over 75 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, over half of which came from the United States. The number of full-time employees working for the top ten market research companies in the United States totaled almost 40,000 in 2020.

In September 2024, the global PMI amounted to 47.5 for new export orders and 48.8 for manufacturing. The manufacturing PMI was at its lowest point in August 2020. It decreased over the last months of 2022 after the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war and rising inflation hit the world economy, and remained around 50 since.

The primary concerns for the alternatives industry for the next five years by asset managers and investors worldwide were the expectation of a global recession, with 56 percent of investors and 46 percent of asset managers expecting to face this challenge within the next five years. The second most anticipated concern is geopolitical risks.

In 2023, the leading media company worldwide based on revenue was Alphabet Inc., with revenue of 284 billion euros. In second place was Meta Platforms Inc, followed by Comcast Corporation, Bytedance, and Walt Disney.

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 2023, this industry had an accumulated value of approximately 2.4 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 2.7 trillion U.S. dollars by 2027.

The first-ranking Alphabet had a revenue of over 284 billion euros in 2023. The U.S. is the most important regional market for Alphabet, generating over 40 percent of its revenue. Alphabet was followed by a telecommunications giant Comcast and by a fellow tech company, Meta. The U.S. is also a major market for Comcast, as they hold more than 20 percent of the pay TV market share in the U.S..

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 an more than 790 minutes per day consuming major media.

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 24 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 5.9 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 5.6 billion U.S. dollars in global revenue in 2023.

Kimberly-Clark was the world's largest forestry and paper company in 2023, with revenue of more than 20.43 billion U.S. dollars. In second place that year was West Rock, which reported revenue of 20.3 billion U.S. dollars.

The valued added by the manufacturing sector to GDP varies significantly across different countries worldwide. In 2023, the manufacturing sector in China added nearly 4.8 trillion U.S. dollars to the country's GDP, while this value in the United States amounted to 2.8 trillion U.S. dollars in the same year.

In 2023, manufacturing saw the highest share of cyberattacks among the leading industries worldwide. During the examined year, manufacturing companies encountered nearly a quarter of the total cyberattacks. Finance and insurance organizations followed, with around 18 percent. Professional, business, and consumer services ranked third, with 15.4 percent of reported cyberattacks. Healthcare industry and cyberattacks
The healthcare industry is considered one of the most vulnerable sectors to cybercrime. Between October 2021 and September 2022, healthcare organizations worldwide saw various cyberattacks, mostly network and application, as well as malware. Additionally, this sector had the highest average data breach cost throughout recent years, amounting to nearly 11 million U.S. dollars. IT perspective and prevention
With recent technology developments, cybersecurity is crucial to an organization’s success. Realizing this, companies have been gradually increasing cybersecurity investments. Thus, in 2024, the cybersecurity budget worldwide was forecast to increase to nearly 283 billion U.S. dollars. Roughly nine in ten board directors of companies worldwide in professional services and media and entertainment industries say they expect an increase in the cybersecurity budget.

Walmart had about 2.1 million employees in 2023, the highest of all companies worldwide that year. Walmart also led ranking of companies by revenue in 2022, with a total revenue of about 640 billion U.S. dollars. Amazon followed in second with 1.5 million employees worldwide, with Hoi Han Precision Industry in third.

Walmart

In the United States, where Walmart has its highest number of employees, there are 4,700 stores as of 2023, and some 3,570 of these stores are Walmart’s Supercenters . The company has expanded all around the world, especially having a high number of stores in Central America.

Amazon

The number of people employed by Amazon has increased rapidly in recent years. In 2019, less than 800,000 people worked at the technology company, whereas in it employed more than 1.5 million in 2023. As with the number of employees, its net revenue has also increased over the last years.

The global market research industry reached a record high market size of approximately 54 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Over the last decade, the global market research industry has performed contrary to broader economic trends as the industry has continued to grow. Figures for 2023 signaled an increase of about two billion U.S. dollars compared to the previous year. Market research industryMarket research is the activity of gathering information about markets in which an organization sells their produces and/or services. This often includes detailed qualitative understandings of consumer attitudes and preferences through tools such interviews, surveys, and increasingly, big-data analytics. The leading market research company worldwide was U.S.-based Gartner in 2022. Slow growth in EuropeWhile growth in the United States has been significant, the revenue of the market research industry in Europe grew just slightly since 2014. Some analysts expect this poor performance to continue into the near future for two reasons. First is the short- and mid-term uncertainty created by Brexit, impacting the reliability of any market research conducted prior to the issue being resolved. Second is the implementation of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws in May 2018, which limit what companies are able to do with personal data. A majority of IT professionals in France, Germany and the UK agree the GDPR laws will prevent personal data being passed on to third parties, reducing the amount of data available to researchers in Europe compared to other regions.

As of March 3, 2025, Apple was the leading tech company by market capitalization globally at 3.62 trillion U.S. dollars. Nvidia ranked second at just over three trillion U.S. dollars, a figure that tumbled in January 2025 following the dramatic release and success of DeepSeek's AI model. The Chinese-made AI model jumped to the top of the Apple Store in late January, stunning investors, and sinking multiple tech stocks. Apple leads the pack 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.