Chinese companies surpassed the United States in the Fortune Global 500 list, showing the momentum of high-quality development

The China Enterprise Confederation and the China Entrepreneur Association released the list of China's top 500 enterprises in 2019. According to the list, the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2019 have set new records in many aspects, including the entry threshold, the number of enterprises with a market value of 100 billion yuan, and the number of enterprises participating in the formulation of international standards. Relevant people pointed out that in the face of complex and severe domestic and international economic situations, the top 500 Chinese enterprises have not only achieved rapid growth in "quantity", but also made significant breakthroughs in "quality", highlighting the vitality and resilience of the Chinese economy.

Nearly 200 companies have been shortlisted for the "100 billion club"

　　Observing the changes in the 2019 list of China's top 500 companies, "growth" is a key word that cannot be ignored.

　　Looking at the overall scale, the total operating revenue of the top 500 Chinese companies in 2019 was 79.10 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.14% over the previous year; the total assets were 29.915 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.08% over the previous year, an increase of 2 percentage points; the total number of employees was 33.5911 million, an increase of 1.6777 million, an increase of 5.26%.

　　Looking at the entry threshold, the entry threshold for the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2019 is 32.325 billion yuan, 1.636 billion yuan higher than the previous year, and has increased for 17 consecutive years.

　　Looking at the 100 billion-level enterprises, there are 194 enterprises with operating revenues of more than 100 billion yuan among the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2019, an increase of 22 from 172 in the previous year. The number of enterprises in the "100 billion club" continues to increase, and the increase has reached a new high. Among them, the operating revenues of 6 enterprises exceeded 1 trillion yuan.

　　In terms of efficiency, the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2019 achieved a total profit of 4,486.425 billion yuan and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 3,532.095 billion yuan, up 20.7% and 10.3% respectively from the top 500 enterprises in the previous year. The net asset profit rate was 9.7%, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. The per capita net profit was 105,100 yuan, up 4,700 yuan from the top 500 enterprises in the previous year, achieving two consecutive increases.

　　Looking at R&D investment, the 426 companies that reported R&D data in the 2019 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises invested a total of 976.548 billion yuan in R&D expenses, a significant year-on-year increase of 21.71% compared with the same caliber. The average R&D investment of enterprises was 2.29 billion yuan, an increase of 9.1%; the average R&D intensity increased to 1.60%, an increase of 0.04 percentage points.

　　"Overall, my country's large enterprises, represented by the top 500 Chinese companies, continue to show a good trend of steady development, and the momentum of shifting to high-quality development is more obvious," said Wang Zhongyu, president of the China Enterprise Confederation and China Entrepreneur Association.

Leaping to the middle and high end of the industrial chain

　　"Among the companies on the list, we can see that the structure has been adjusted, and the number of companies representing advanced manufacturing and modern service industries is growing," said Zhu Hongren, executive vice president of the China Enterprise Confederation.

　　According to the list, among the 51 new companies in the 2019 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises, there are 3 new companies in the insurance industry, 3 new companies in the diversified investment industry, 2 new companies in the commercial banking industry, and 1 new company in the diversified financial industry. After deducting one insurance company that withdrew from the list, there was a net increase of 8 companies in the financial industry. The number of manufacturing companies decreased by 3 compared with the top 500 companies last year, but modern advanced equipment manufacturing companies continued to grow. There was 1 new company each in the power and electrical equipment manufacturing industry, wind and solar energy equipment manufacturing industry, computer and office equipment manufacturing industry, communication equipment manufacturing industry, and semiconductor, integrated circuit and panel manufacturing industry.

　　Li Jin, a researcher at the Center for Large Enterprises at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, told our reporter that judging from the structure of the companies that made and left the Fortune 500 this year, the industrial structure of China's top 500 companies and the internal industrial structure of the companies are all adjusting and upgrading. Banks and non-bank financial institutions are growing and developing simultaneously, the modern financial support system serving the development of the real economy is becoming more complete, and large companies are leaping towards the middle and high end of the manufacturing industry chain.

　　The list also shows that corporate deleveraging continues to achieve positive results. The average asset-liability ratio of the top 500 Chinese companies in 2019 was 83.78%, down 0.63 percentage points year-on-year; the average asset-liability ratio of non-bank companies was 72.66%, down 0.62 percentage points year-on-year. The profit gap between real enterprises and banks has narrowed. The net asset profit rate of non-bank companies in the top 500 Chinese companies in 2019 was 8.34%, up 2.47 percentage points; the net asset profit rate of banks was 12.38%, down 0.48 percentage points.

　　"The increase and decrease reflect that the imbalance in the development of finance and the real economy has been easing. Today, China's real economy is showing a sustained positive development momentum; this trend is expected to continue in the future," said Li Jin.

The number of Fortune 500 companies on the list exceeds that of the United States

　　Globally, the international status of Chinese companies has been steadily improving. The number of Chinese companies on the 2019 Fortune Global 500 list increased from 120 last year to 129, surpassing the United States. This is the first time that the number of companies from other countries has exceeded that of the United States on the Fortune Global 500 list.

　　In Li Jin's view, the continuous improvement of innovation capabilities has provided strong support for Chinese companies to enhance their international influence and win international discourse power. A total of 340 companies among the top 500 Chinese companies in 2019 reported their participation in standard setting, and participated in the formulation of 1,905 international standards, an increase of 350 items over the previous year, achieving growth for two consecutive years. From the perspective of industry, telecommunications services, household appliance manufacturing, ferrous metallurgy, and rail transit equipment and parts manufacturing companies participated in the formulation of 949, 127, 108, and 103 international standards, respectively, and have strong international discourse power; especially the telecommunications service industry, which participated in the formulation of 949 international standards, which is the most prominent.

　　In the 2019 Global Top 500 Brands released by British brand evaluation agency Brand Finance, the proportion of Chinese brands has increased from 3% 10 years ago to 19% in 2019; a total of 77 Chinese brands are on the list, 11 more than the previous year. The total value of Chinese brands on the list increased to US$1,307.4 billion, breaking through US$1 trillion for the first time, accounting for 19% of the total value of the Global Top 500 Brands.

　　In terms of transnational operations, the list data shows that the average transnational index of the top 100 Chinese multinational corporations in 2019 was 15.96%, an increase of 0.06 percentage points from the previous year. During the same period, the transnational index of the top 100 multinational corporations in the world fell by 3.84 percentage points. China's transnational index achieved an increase against the trend.

　　Miao Rong, chief researcher at the Enterprise Research Center of the China Enterprise Confederation, believes that in the face of multiple challenges and pressures from home and abroad, Chinese companies have taken proactive and multi-faceted measures and have taken firm steps towards high-quality development. In the future, we should further focus on breakthroughs in key and core technologies, break through key links in the supply chain, create internationally renowned brands, accelerate digital transformation, increase the technology and hardness of service provision, and build world-class companies with global competitiveness.

       Sinopec ranked first with a revenue of 2.74 trillion yuan, followed by PetroChina and State Grid with revenues of 2.60 trillion yuan and 2.56 trillion yuan respectively. In terms of technology companies, China Mobile ranked 13th with revenue of 741.48 billion yuan; Huawei Investment ranked 15th with revenue of 721.202 billion yuan; Suning Holdings ranked 19th with revenue of 602.456 billion yuan;

JD.com ranked 35th with operating revenue of 462.02 billion yuan; China Telecom ranked 37th with operating revenue of 454.492 billion yuan; Alibaba ranked 45th with operating revenue of 376.844 billion yuan; Lenovo Group ranked 53rd with operating revenue of 337.601 billion yuan.

      Tencent Holdings ranked 60th with operating revenue of 312.694 billion yuan; China Unicom ranked 69th with operating revenue of 292.185 billion yuan; Haier Group ranked 79th with operating revenue of 266.118 billion yuan; Midea Group ranked 80th with operating revenue of 261.8 billion yuan; Gree Electric Appliances ranked 102nd with operating revenue of 200.024 billion yuan; Xiaomi Group ranked 113th with operating revenue of 174.915 billion yuan; TCL Group ranked 164th with operating revenue of 113.360 billion yuan; Baidu ranked 237th with operating revenue of 81.912 billion yuan; NetEase ranked 269th with operating revenue of 67.156 billion yuan.