Asia’s Largest Companies

This story appears in the June 16, 2014 issue of Forbes Asia.

By Liyan Chen and Andrea Murphy

With more than one-third of the world’s largest companies, Asia now has more Global 2000 members than any other continent in the world.

This year’s Global 2000 hail from 61 countries, up from 46 in FORBES’ inaugural 2003 ranking. Asia alone lands 672 spots, up 26.3% from 2003. For the first time China is home to the world’s three biggest companies; it also lands 5 of the top 10 spots. With 216 Global 2000 members from both mainland and Hong Kong, the country of the dragon narrows its gap with its eastern neighbor. Japan, home to the world’s largest auto-maker Toyota Motor, holds onto its crown with 226 Global 2000 members in total.

The Global 2000 is a comprehensive ranking of the world’s biggest stock-traded companies, by a composite measure of revenues, profits, assets and market value as of April 1. Not included are employee-or cooperative-owned entities such as Huawei of China and Fonterra of New Zealand. Also, companies structured as limited partnerships, such as some large private equity firms, are excluded for accounting inconsistencies.

Here are Asia’s largest companies and their rankings in this year’s Global 2000:

ICBC (No.1)

China Construction Bank (No.2)

Agricultural Bank of China (No.3)

Bank of China (No.9)

PetroChina (No.10)

Toyota Motor (No.12)

Samsung Electronics (No.22)

China Mobile (No.28)

Sinopec-China Petroleum (No.29)

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (No.37)

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial (No.56)

Nippon Telegraph & Tel (No.61)

Ping An Insurance Group (No.62)

Bank of Communications (No.65)

China Life Insurance (No.66)

Honda Motor (No.70)

Softbank (No.73)

Hyundai Motor (No.87)

Mizuho Financial (No.101)

China Merchants Bank (No.102)

CNOOC (No.108)

Nissan Motor (No.111)

China Minsheng Banking (No.121)

China Shenhua Energy (No.124)

Mitsubishi Corp (No.126)