|
The Fortune Global 500 list is based on revenues. Companies are ranked by total
revenues for their respective fiscal years ended on or before March 31, 2011. It
is not required that they be public companies, but they must publish financial
data and report part or all of their figures to a government agency in order to
be considered. Revenue figures for corporations include consolidated
subsidiaries and reported revenues from discontinued operations but exclude
excise taxes. For banks, revenue is the sum of gross interest income and gross
noninterest income. For insurance companies, revenue includes premium and
annuity income, investment income, realized capital gains or losses, and other
income, but excludes deposits.
The FT
Global 500 ranking is based on market value. Market value,
or market capitalization takes a snapshot of the share
price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding.
Finally, the
Forbes Global 2000 uses four metrics—sales, profit,
assets and market value—each of which is equally weighted, in order to
determine the top companies. In this survey, only public companies are
considered.
Each of the
rankings has its strengths and weaknesses in terms of determining the world’s
largest corporations. For example, using solely revenue as a measure—as in the
Fortune list—does not take into account differences in expenditures for the same
amount of incoming revenue, and thus gives a bias towards revenue-heavy
retailers.
Using market
value—as the FT list does—involves a single snapshot of the relative value that
investors put on the company—without accounting for variations due to
seasonality, the impact of positive or negative news headlines about the
company, M&A rumors, executive changes, and the many other factors that
affect share price on a daily basis. Finally, listing only public companies—as
with the Forbes ranking—excludes privately owned and wholly state-owned
corporations.
In the 2011
Fortune ranking, the latest available, US-based retailer Wal-Mart comes in at
the top, with almost $422 billion in revenues. In second spot is oil
& gas company Royal Dutch Shell of The Netherlands—with revenues of $378
billion. American Exxon Mobil follows closely with nearly $355 billion in
revenues.
US computer
giant Apple tops the FT 2012 ranking, with a market value of almost
$560 billion. Second is Exxon Mobil at $408,8 billion and third is Petrochina
with $279 billion of market value.
Exxon Mobil leads
the 2012 Forbes list, followed by JPMorgan Chase and General Electric, a trio of
American companies. Exxon Mobil is, on average, the highest ranking company
across the three
lists.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment