On Wednesday, May 15, Forbes released their 17th annual ranking of world’s heaviest hitters in the business world, Global 2000, which lists the largest public companies in the world. 

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), a state-owned bank with over USD4 trillion in assets, was ranked the largest company on the globe for a seventh consecutive year, with JPMorgan & Chase finishing as the runner-up. With close to half a million employees on the payroll, the bank behemoth is in a category of its own.

China holds five of the top 10 spots in Forbes’ Global 2000 list, including the nation’s four state-owned banks: China Construction Bank (No. 3), Agricultural Bank of China (No. 4) and Bank of China (No. 8). Shenzhen-based Ping’An Insurance Company of China also made the top 10, coming in at No. 7. Meanwhile, four US companies (JP Morgan & Chase, Bank of America, Apple and Wells Fargo) also made the top 10, with Dutch-owned Royal Dutch Shell rounding out the 10 biggest enterprises.

Forbes points out the meteoric rise in the number of companies based in Greater China that have made their way onto the annual list. In 2003, when the Global 2000 first got started, Greater China only had 43 companies crack the prestigious top 2,000 list. This year, however, 309 companies from China and Hong Kong earned spots. The US still leads all other nations with 575 companies included in the rankings.

While China’s representation in the top 100 is mainly comprised of state-owned financial institutions, oil companies and the like, some notable non-state-owned Chinese companies cracked the top 100 this year, including Alibaba (No. 59), Tencent (No. 74) and China Evergrande Group (No. 94). 

You can check out all the world’s largest public companies right here.

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