Every single reader of this business blog has purchased something, at one point or another in their lives, from one or, more likely, many of the Fortune 500‘s Top 100 global companies that are listed in this article.
After all, these companies are big (in part) because we spend our money there!
In 2008’s edition to the Fortune 100 listing, the companies span many major industries, reflecting the current diversity of the world economy. Banking, mining, engineering, telecoms, energy, electronics, entertainment are all represented in the « best of the best » or, more simply said, the global companies with the biggest revenues.
Please note that the most impressive growth in revenue numbers, in 2007 compared to 2006, is held by the industries of (1) banking, growth and services, (2) mining and crude-oil production and (3) shipping.
Let’s jump right in and take a look at the list leaders:
| Rank | Company | Revenues ($ millions) |
Profits ($ millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wal-Mart Stores | 378,799 | 12,731 |
| 2 | Exxon Mobil | 372,824 | 40,610 |
| 3 | Royal Dutch Shell | 355,782 | 31,331 |
| 4 | BP | 291,438 | 20,845 |
| 5 | Toyota Motor | 230,201 | 15,042 |
| 6 | Chevron | 210,783 | 18,688 |
| 7 | ING Group | 201,516 | 12,649 |
| 8 | Total | 187,280 | 18,042 |
| 9 | General Motors | 182,347 | -38,732 |
| 10 | ConocoPhillips | 178,558 | 11,891 |
| 11 | Daimler | 177,167 | 5,446 |
| 12 | General Electric | 176,656 | 22,208 |
| 13 | Ford Motor | 172,468 | -2,723 |
| 14 | Fortis | 164,877 | 5,467 |
| 15 | AXA | 162,762 | 7,755 |
| 16 | Sinopec | 159,260 | 4,166 |
| 17 | Citigroup | 159,229 | 3,617 |
| 18 | Volkswagen | 149,054 | 5,639 |
| 19 | Dexia Group | 147,648 | 3,467 |
| 20 | HSBC Holdings | 146,500 | 19,133 |
| 21 | BNP Paribas | 140,726 | 10,706 |
| 22 | Allianz | 140,618 | 10,904 |
| 23 | Crédit Agricole | 138,155 | 8,172 |
| 24 | State Grid | 132,885 | 4,423 |
| 25 | China National Petroleum | 129,798 | 14,925 |
| 26 | Deutsche Bank | 122,644 | 8,861 |
| 27 | ENI | 120,565 | 13,703 |
| 28 | Bank of America Corp. | 119,190 | 14,982 |
| 29 | AT&T | 118,928 | 11,951 |
| 30 | Berkshire Hathaway | 118,245 | 13,213 |
| 31 | UBS | 117,206 | -3,654 |
| 32 | J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. | 116,353 | 15,365 |
| 33 | Carrefour | 115,585 | 3,147 |
| 34 | Assicurazioni Generali | 113,813 | 3,991 |
| 35 | American International Group | 110,064 | 6,200 |
| 36 | Royal Bank of Scotland | 108,392 | 15,103 |
| 37 | Siemens | 106,444 | 5,063 |
| 38 | Samsung Electronics | 106,006 | 7,986 |
| 39 | ArcelorMittal | 105,216 | 10,368 |
| 40 | Honda Motor | 105,102 | 5,254 |
| 41 | Hewlett-Packard | 104,286 | 7,264 |
| 42 | Pemex | 103,960 | -1,675 |
| 43 | Société Générale | 103,443 | 1,296 |
| 44 | McKesson | 101,703 | 990 |
| 45 | HBOS | 100,267 | 8,093 |
| 46 | International Business Machines | 98,786 | 10,418 |
| 47 | Gazprom | 98,642 | 19,269 |
| 48 | Hitachi | 98,306 | -509 |
| 49 | Valero Energy | 96,758 | 5,234 |
| 50 | Nissan Motor | 94,782 | 4,223 |
| 51 | Tesco | 94,703 | 4,253 |
| 52 | E.ON | 94,356 | 9,861 |
| 53 | Verizon Communications | 93,775 | 5,521 |
| 54 | Nippon Telegraph & Telephone | 93,527 | 5,562 |
| 55 | Deutsche Post | 90,472 | 1,901 |
| 56 | Metro | 90,267 | 1,129 |
| 57 | Nestlé | 89,630 | 8,874 |
| 58 | Santander Central Hispano Group | 89,295 | 12,401 |
| 59 | Statoil Hydro | 89,224 | 7,526 |
| 60 | Cardinal Health | 88,364 | 1,931 |
| 61 | Goldman Sachs Group | 87,968 | 11,599 |
| 62 | Morgan Stanley | 87,879 | 3,209 |
| 63 | Petrobras | 87,735 | 13,138 |
| 64 | Deutsche Telekom | 85,570 | 779 |
| 65 | Home Depot | 84,740 | 4,395 |
| 66 | Peugeot | 82,965 | 1,211 |
| 67 | LG | 82,096 | 2,916 |
| 68 | Électricité de France | 81,629 | 7,690 |
| 69 | Aviva | 81,317 | 2,655 |
| 70 | Barclays | 80,347 | 8,837 |
| 71 | Fiat | 80,112 | 2,673 |
| 72 | Matsushita Electric Industrial | 79,412 | 2,468 |
| 73 | BASF | 79,322 | 5,565 |
| 74 | Credit Suisse | 78,206 | 6,467 |
| 75 | Sony | 77,682 | 3,235 |
| 76 | Telefónica | 77,254 | 12,190 |
| 77 | UniCredit Group | 77,030 | 8,159 |
| 78 | BMW | 76,675 | 4,279 |
| 79 | Procter & Gamble | 76,476 | 10,340 |
| 80 | CVS Caremark | 76,330 | 2,637 |
| 81 | UnitedHealth Group | 75,431 | 4,654 |
| 82 | Hyundai Motor | 74,900 | 1,722 |
| 83 | U.S. Postal Service | 74,778 | -5,142 |
| 84 | France Télécom | 72,488 | 8,623 |
| 85 | Vodafone | 71,202 | 13,366 |
| 86 | SK Holdings | 70,717 | 1,505 |
| 87 | Kroger | 70,235 | 1,180 |
| 88 | Nokia | 69,886 | 9,862 |
| 89 | ThyssenKrupp | 68,799 | 2,796 |
| 90 | Lukoil | 67,205 | 9,511 |
| 91 | Toshiba | 67,145 | 1,116 |
| 92 | Repsol YPF | 67,006 | 4,364 |
| 93 | Boeing | 66,387 | 4,074 |
| 94 | Prudential Financial Services |
66,358 | 2,045 |
| 95 | Petronas | 66,218 | 18,118 |
| 96 | AmerisourceBergen | 66,074 | 469 |
| 97 | Suez | 64,982 | 5,370 |
| 98 | Munich Re Group | 64,774 | 5,275 |
| 99 | Costco Wholesale | 64,400 | 1,083 |
| 100 | Merrill Lynch | 64,217 | -7,777 |
Apart from instantly seeing if any of these companies made more or less money in 2007 than in 2006, this list is a great starting point to visit the lush web sites most of these companies have built, complete with investor information, media relations and lots of interactive features.
Surfing the company web sites, you may want to wander towards their various R&D-like sections where they explain their vision and how they intend to realize it, in the future. This could be your chance to offer them to help on one of their upcoming projects, thus helping your company score significant new business.
If you can make these companies look good at the next shareholder meeting, it’s obvious that they want to hear from you so package your message so that’s what they end up hearing.
If the hat fits, use this list wisely to grow your business alongside these global heavyweights that typically have deep pockets but also an obligation to continuously keep up with competitors. This race towards more innovation and novel methods represents, among other things, your chance to become « interesting » for at least some of these Fortune 100 companies.
Tags: fortune 500, fortune 100, top 100 businesses, top 100 companies, biggest companies, global companies, worldwide companies, us companies, french companies, deutsch companies, rich companies, rich businesses, global businesses, revenues, profits, money, shareholders
