India's top companies most expensive globally

With a Price to Earnings (P/E) multiple which is 50% higher than the global average and 1.5 times more expensive than China’s top firms, India’s top listed companies remain the most expensive globally, according to The Economic Times report on Friday. Out of the world’s 500 biggest companies in terms of market capitalisation, there are now 13 Indian firms, up from nine last year. In comparison, 57 Chinese companies in the top 500 list account for 9.7% of the global market capitalisation, which is well below their share in profits and revenues.

These Chinese companies accounted for 14.1% of the combined revenues of the top 500 companies and 14.3% of the net profit.

Indian companies on the contrary have a higher share of market capitalisation (1.82%) than revenue (1.2%) and profit (1.1%) among the top 500. They are also richly valued as compared to their counterparts in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

US companies dominate top 500 list

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharati Airtel, Wipro, HCL Tech are the Indian companies that are part of the top 500.

Globally, Apple continues to be the most valuable company with a market capitalisation of almost $2.5 trillion followed by Microsoft at $2.3 trillion and Saudi Aramco at around $2 trillion.

The top 500 list is dominated by companies from the US, followed by the European Union at a distant second, and then China and Japan. Currently, there are 221 companies up from 206 last year. These companies had a combined market capitalisation of $33.4 trillion, and annual revenues and profits of $9.3 trillion and $1.2 trillion respectively.