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- smack1700, on 04/09/2009, -2/+47Rank Company
1 General Electric
2 Royal Dutch Shell
3 Toyota Motor
4 ExxonMobil
5 BP
6 HSBC Holdings
7 AT&T
8 Wal-Mart Stores
9 Banco Santander
9 Chevron
11 Total
12 ICBC
13 Gazprom
14 PetroChina
15 Volkswagen Group
16 JPMorgan Chase
17 GDF Suez
18 ENI
19 Berkshire Hathaway
20 Vodafone
21 Mitsubishi UFJ Financial
22 Procter & Gamble
23 CCB-China Construction Bank
24 Verizon Communications
25 Petrobras-Petróleo Brasil
26 Nippon Telegraph & Tel
27 EDF Group
28 IBM
29 BNP Paribas
30 Bank of China
31 Telefónica
32 Nestlé
33 Sinopec-China Petroleum
34 Crédit Agricole
35 Siemens
36 Hewlett-Packard
37 Intesa Sanpaolo
38 Bank of America
39 Honda Motor
40 BBVA-Banco Bilbao Vizcaya
41 ArcelorMittal
42 Johnson & Johnson
43 ENEL
44 UniCredit Group
45 Generali Group
46 France Telecom
47 Samsung Electronics
48 Deutsche Bank
49 Microsoft
50 Pfizer
51 Wells Fargo
52 BHP Billiton
53 StatoilHydro
54 Sumitomo Mitsui Financial
55 China Mobile
56 Goldman Sachs Group
57 RWE Group
58 Roche Holding
59 Commonwealth Bank
60 Société Générale Group
61 Novartis
62 E.ON
63 Deutsche Telekom
64 Rosneft
65 Mizuho Financial
65 Sanofi-aventis
67 National Australia Bank
68 Royal Bank of Canada
69 Cisco Systems
69 Rio Tinto
71 Tesco
72 China Life Insurance
73 Mitsubishi Corp
74 Vale
75 Munich Re
76 Lukoil
77 Barclays
78 Banco Bradesco
79 Unilever
80 BASF
81 Nokia
82 Sony
83 CVS Caremark
83 Daimler
85 United Technologies
86 Saudi Basic Industries
87 Iberdrola
88 Nissan Motor
89 Panasonic
90 MetLife
91 Westpac Banking Group
92 GlaxoSmithKline
93 Morgan Stanley
94 Telecom Italia
95 Intel
96 Zurich Financial Services
97 Mitsui & Co
98 Comcast
99 AXA Group
100 Bayer Group - malanic, on 04/09/2009, -5/+20Interesting how often 'Banking' comes up on the list. It's the only service that doesn't actually produce anything consumable. It just deals in an imaginary concept, and promises.
That's a lot of 'money' just to keep the books on who owes how much to whomever. - llopez1223, on 04/10/2009, -0/+11Thank you for taking one for the team. I simply cannot find myself clicking through the slideshows on Forbes.com, mostly because of severe apathy, but still.
- bullmeister, on 04/10/2009, -1/+10Wow - Forbes has an incredibly disjointed website.
- meltingcube, on 04/10/2009, -0/+7Anyone else notice how out of the top 10 most profitable on the list, the first 6 are oil companies?
- malanic, on 04/09/2009, -1/+8Just adding to that, from that list of 100, I've counted 33 companies that make their money from dealing with money, ie. non-consumables (banking, financials, or insurance), and only 3 companies that deal in food (and two of those make a lot from tobacco as well).
So fully one third keeps the books, and less than one tenth of that provides food. I'd guess that's either a testament to our efficiency at producing food, or our inefficiency at managing our promises to each other. - FlyinRyan89, on 04/10/2009, -0/+7155
with just over 100 billion in market value. - inactive, on 04/10/2009, -1/+7I like your trolling technique.. 8/10
- trevorjez, on 04/10/2009, -6/+12But I thought this was the year Apple, Google, and Linux were going to triple team and get rid of Microsoft? No? $17.41 billion in profits speaks volumes.
- jguy584, on 04/10/2009, -0/+6Royal Bank of Scotland has almost $4 trillion in assets.
Holy *****. Do they own the damn country? - zaferk, on 04/10/2009, -0/+5where the hell is general motors?
- 666300, on 04/10/2009, -0/+5Where is Google compared to some of those huge compaines?
- iamtad, on 04/10/2009, -1/+5Cost of Good Sold, Wages, occupancy, advertising, R&D, debt payments, etc...
Heres a look at their Income Satetment if you really want the details ...
http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/comp ... - eramos, on 04/10/2009, -1/+5What does Walmart produce that's consumable? How come you have to produce a tangible good to have value? That's such a ***** stupid backward hillbilly populist notion. ***** it pisses me off. Stop being so god damn ignorant AND PROUD OF IT, America.
- mattisallama, on 04/10/2009, -0/+4Interesting how Wal-Mart is the only retailing company on the list besides CVS near the bottom
- da233, on 04/10/2009, -0/+4That's GE, not GM
- caseypc, on 04/10/2009, -0/+3WOW!
Oh... nevermind. I should have known that oil & gas companies would all be at the top of the list. - hazyeight, on 04/10/2009, -0/+3[Citation needed]
- yerdaddy, on 04/10/2009, -0/+3It represents our strong belief in and love for parasites. Thank you sir, may I get another tap driven into my aorta?
- inactive, on 04/10/2009, -0/+3Nintendo is on the list, cool.
- sprash, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2Well those car makers are not necessarily greed based either. They actually produce something, a product which you can actually touch and use, in a rather competitive market.
However. Most of the top companies are either financial, trade or oil based. And so you instantly see what's wrong with this world: If you want to become a top company, better produce no actual value. - fattony89, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2once they were all small businesses, whats so bad about becoming huge? every business wants to expand. then again diggers live in a perfect world where capitalism is twisted is no oil/banking companies become too large and only good things happen.
- zboyet, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2you gotta love em
- cactus476, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2Largest*
- InaudibleDirge, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2What with a majority of the highest ranking corporations being either oil or automobile, it's no wonder we still rely so heavily on the combustion engine and fossil fuels after almost one hundred years.
- NobleWolf, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2Tesco, at number 71, is a British retail chain.
- nedzeve, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Banks are supposed to fulfil two important supporting roles for the rest of the economy. They're supposed to provide a safe place for investors to leave their their money -- investors who don't want to bear risk. On the other hand, banks also try to put that money back into the system by making smart choices about who to lend that money out to. Almost everyone who runs a business or owns a car or a home borrows money from a bank to get the ball rolling on their great idea. There is value in the sort of due diligence and risk-bearing that banks practice in deciding which recipients (businesses and individuals) are the most credit-worthy recipients of our collectively invested savings. In other words, it's good for money to flow from people who don't want to bear risk (and reap small rewards) to those who can handle the risk (and make potentially bigger gains). Banks are supposed to make this process robust and efficient by utilizing their talent and good judgement.
The problem is, a lot of he banks didn't make smart decisions about who to lend money too. They got greedy and made a lot of loans they shouldn't have. This is why it's important that society have some oversight in what goes on in backs. Unfortunately, we let up on the reigns a little bit in the last couple decades, and now we're paying the price. - diggwut, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Complying with regulations also costs companies a fortune.
- meltingcube, on 04/14/2009, -0/+1Your thinking of revenue, which is the total amount they bring in, while as profit is the amount they have *after* operating expenses. (revenue - expenses = profit)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_(accounting) - tusseyd, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1I'd like to see a rank of sales/employee...now that would be interesting. For example, Google and Oracle make about the same about of revenue, but Oracle has 4X as many people.
- malanic, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1You must be 'living in a bubble' if you can't see where peoples' mistrust in the oil and banking industry comes from.
- zaferk, on 04/10/2009, -1/+2I'm really surprised how most of the companies have such a low sales:profit ratio. GE has 182.52:17.41. Someone please explain where over 90% of the sales go to.
- Roadvirus, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1I'm not surprised GE is on top. It's always been a survivor due to it's vast diverse holdings.
- fattony89, on 04/13/2009, -0/+1but your comment seems to make out like you would rather we shouldn't spend so many resources on banking. why do the top companies have to make a product? services are vitally important part and dealing with money is that most profitable, you cant expect food to make anywhere near the same amount considering how much people spend on managing money. yet even with banking people cant seem to manage their own money well enough, ironically neither did banks but i guess that's a different debate.
- eramos, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Look at their liabilities. Almost $4 trillion as well. Care to venture a guess as to why that is? (Hint: Even US banks have assets in the trillions)
- fattony89, on 04/11/2009, -0/+1true but i drive and i use banks so hard to bitch when they help me so much.
- Xviper78, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1General Electric is greedy too. They have a financial division that is responsible for retail credit cards with high interest rates. Ever heard of a Gap Card? That's GE Capital.
- hazyeight, on 04/10/2009, -1/+2Because you're dumb.
- Phi01, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1How is Verizon, AT&T, and Vodafone on the list and Sprint isn't?
- BCPneumatics, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1All the trillion plus dollar asset holders are banks and the highest profit companies deal in petroleum. Seems about right these days.
- fattony89, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1consumable or not banking is a vital sector, your living in a bubble if you think otherwise.
- bshensky, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Is that COSCO the same as the company that makes children's seats?
- crazyeyezkilla, on 04/11/2009, -0/+1no.
- Myztry, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Then there is the next tier with trust, funds, groups and other instruments representing those (sometimes very few) who own multitudes (sometimes very many) of the companies listed.
Some of those groups are up there with Governments by scale. - donnytomas, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1What an agonizing article to try to read and navigate. Forbes needs to lay off their web team and hire some scabs from the ranks of Digg.
- SirCharge, on 04/12/2009, -0/+1"most of the 25 run around greed"
What does that even mean? -
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