Forbes Global 2000 | JPMorgan top of the class; Chinese firms' tally shrinks

JP Morgan has replaced Berkshire Hathaway for the top spot

JPMorgan Chase, America's largest lender with $3.7 trillion in assets, has secured the top spot in the 2023 Forbes Global 2000 list, which ranks the world's top 2,000 publicly traded firms on the basis of sales, profits, assets and market valuations over a 12-month period.

The New York-headquartered JPMorgan replaced Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, which ranked at the first spot in the 2022 list but has now dropped to the 338th position due to an estimated loss of $22 billion suffered in the past 12 months.

Among Indian companies, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries was the only one to feature in the top 50. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate was ranked at the 45th position. Forbes also said that India's state-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), which was publicly listed last year, is a "notable inclusion" in the list and has been ranked 363rd.

Some of the other Indian companies in the list include the State Bank of India (SBI), which is ranked 77th, HDFC Bank 125th, ICICI Bank 163rd, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) 226th, Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) 232nd, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) 387th, Tata Steel 529th, Indian Oil 540th and Wipro 859th.

The United States has the largest number of companies in the Forbes 2000 list at 611, followed by China, which accounted for the second-largest for a second consecutive year. The list was released on June 8.

The number of Chinese firms on the list, however, marginally declined from the previous year. While 346 companies based in the country, including in the semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong, made it to the top 2,000 this time, the number was 351 in the 2022 list.

The drop is being attributed to the woes that have plagued China's real- estate businesses. The entire sector is said to be suffering from excess supply, reduced demand and piling debt.

This has resulted in eight Chinese real-estate firms being knocked out from the Forbes list this year and several sliding down in their ranks. The Guangdong-based Country Garden slipped to 782nd rank from 255th last year, while Sunac, one of China's biggest property developers, couldn't make the cut.

Japan with 192 firms accounts for the third highest number of companies on the Forbes list, sharply lower from 331 last year. The United Kingdom's tally also halved from 132 to 67.

In the top 10 list, Saudi Aramco followed JPMorgan for the second spot, whereas, three Chinese state-run lenders - ICBC, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China - occupied the third, fourth and fifth ranks, respectively.

Bank of America was ranked sixth, Google parent Alphabet seventh, ExxonMobil eighth, Microsoft ninth and Apple was at the tenth spot.

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