Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Forbes Global 2000
The Forbes Global 2000 is a ranking of the top 2000 public corporations in the world based on a balanced mix of four metrics. The metrics are Sales, Profit, Assets and Market Value. The list is compiled and published annually by Forbes magazine. Values below are all in billions of dollars (US).
As the list is published early in the calendar year, Forbes has to use out of date information for the many non U.S companies which have year ends early in the calendar year, including Japanese companies, which all have 31 March year ends. No adjustments are made to reflect different accounting practices in different countries, which leads to some major anomalies. For example Vodafone is ranked 377 in the 2005 list due to losses created by huge writedowns of purchased goodwill, but if amortisation of purchased goodwill was not charged against statutory profits in the UK, it would be in the top 20. It should also be noted that wholly state owned corporations are excluded because no market valuation exists and in some cases accounts are not publicly available either. Some of these state companies would rank highly if they were eligible, for example the national oil companies of some of the OPEC countries.
The Forbes Global 2000 is a useful indicator of which are the leading companies in the world, but it is only an interpretation. The results are not definitive; any change to the criteria would produce a different list.
| Contents |
2005 list
| Forbes 2000 Rank | Company | Country | Category | Sales | Profits | Assets | Market Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Citigroup | United States | Banking | 108.28 | 17.05 | 1,484.10 | 247.66 |
| 2 | General Electric | United States | Conglomerates | 152.36 | 16.59 | 750.33 | 372.14 |
| 3 | AIG | United States | Insurance | 95.04 | 10.91 | 776.42 | 173.99 |
| 4 | Bank of America | United States | Banking | 65.45 | 14.14 | 1,110.46 | 188.77 |
| 5 | HSBC Group | United Kingdom | Banking | 62.97 | 9.52 | 1,031.29 | 186.74 |
| 6 | ExxonMobil | United States | Oil & gas operations | 263.99 | 25.33 | 195.26 | 405.25 |
| 7 | Royal Dutch/Shell | Netherlands/United Kingdom | Oil & gas operations | 265.19 | 18.54 | 193.83 | 221.49 |
| 8 | BP | United Kingdom | Oil & gas operations | 285.06 | 15.73 | 191.11 | 231.88 |
| 9 | ING Group | Netherlands | Diversified financials | 92.01 | 8.10 | 1,175.16 | 68.04 |
| 10 | Toyota Motor | Japan | Consumer durables | 165.68 | 11.13 | 211.15 | 140.89 |
2005 breakdown by region
- North America - 821
- Pacific Rim - 544
- Western Europe - 527
- South Asia - 32
- Eastern Europe - 30
- South America - 26
- Africa - 20
- Middle East - 9
2005 breakdown by country
- United States - 719
- Japan - 326
- United Kingdom - 140
- Canada - 67
- Germany - 63
- France - 62
- Italy - 45
- South Korea - 41
- Australia - 38
- Switzerland - 37
- Taiwan - 35
- Netherlands - 33
- India - 30
- Spain - 30
- Hong Kong - 28
- Sweden - 28
- China - 25
- Bermuda - 19
- Brazil - 19
- Mexico - 18
- South Africa - 18
- Finland - 15
- Malaysia - 14
- Russia - 13
- Singapore - 13
- Thailand - 13
- Belgium - 12
- Greece - 12
- Turkey - 11
- Denmark - 10
Many other countries have between 1 and 9 companies on the list.
See also
- Forbes 500
- Forbes Global 2000
- Fortune 500
- Fortune Global 500
External link
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