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27 Indian firms on Forbes' global giants list
Forbes 2000 is a comprehensive ranking measured by a composite of sales, profits, assets and market value, reports S Rajagopalan.
More Indian companies have begun to flex their muscle as global giants. Twenty-seven Indian firms have been featured in this year’s Forbes 2000, a comprehensive ranking measured by a composite of sales, profits, assets and market value.
The Indian list is headed by Indian Oil Corp (ranked 243) and followed by State Bank of India (251), ONGC (273), Reliance Industries (303) and Bharat Petroleum (804).
The number of Indian companies to make it to the Forbes list is up from last year’s 20. The new entrants include Steel Authority of India Ltd, Tata Iron and Steel Co, Union Bank of India, Neyveli Lignite, Bharti Televentures, Indian Overseas Bank, Hindalco Industries and Oriental Bank of Commerce.
Oriental Bank has just about made it to the list: it is ranked 2000th.
Of the four parameters set by Forbes, Indian Oil leads in sales ($25.26 billion), SBI in assets ($104.80 billion) and ONGC in profits ($2.20 billion) and market value ($23.26 billion).
Ten of the 27 Indian global giants are banking companies and five are engaged in oil and gas operations. The two IT firms, Infosys and Wipro, continue on the list.
The other Indian companies in the select band are:
ICICI Bank, Hindustan Petroleum, GAIL, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, ITC, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, HDFC, IDBI, Ranbaxy Laboratories and MTNL. The one Indian company to be excluded from last year’s classification is Hindustan Lever.
The Forbes 2000 list is dominated by American companies, with as many as 751 of them finding a place. Heading the overall list is Citigroup, with its assets put at $ 1,264 billion and profits at $ 17.85 billion.
“Like it or not, the global economy will stay that way,” says Forbes in its introduction and has a dig at Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry’s furious campaign against outsourcing and free trade.
