India home to 54 of world's largest, most powerful public companies

NEW YORK: Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries leads the pack of 54 Indian companies in Forbes' annual list of the world's 2000 largest and most powerful public companies, with Chinese companies occupying the top three slots on the list.

The Forbes 'Global 2000' is a comprehensive list of the world's largest, most powerful public companies, as measured by revenues, profits, assets and market value.

China is home to the world's top three biggest public companies and five of the top 10.

The US retains its dominance as the country with the most Global 2000 companies at 564.

Japan trails the US with 225 companies in aggregate. India is home to 54 of the world's biggest companies. Reliance Industries is ranked 135 on the list with a market value of 50.9 billion dollars and 72.8 billion dollars in sales as on May 2014.

Reliance is followed by State Bank of India which is ranked 155 and has a 23.6 billion dollars market value.

The other Indian companies on the list are Oil and Natural Gas ranked 176, ICICI Bank (304), Tata Motors (332), Indian Oil (416), HDFC Bank (422), Coal India (428), Larsen & Toubro (500), Tata Consultancy Services (543), Bharti Airtel (625), Axis Bank (630), Infosys (727), Bank of Baroda (801), Mahindra & Mahindra (803), ITC (830), Wipro (849), Bharat Heavy Electricals (873), GAIL India (955), Tata Steel (983) and Power Grid of India (1011).

Also making the list are Bharat Petroleum (1045), HCL Technologies (1153), Hindustan Petroleum (1211), Adani Enterprises (1233), Kotak Mahindra Bank (1255), Sun Pharma Industries (1294), Steel Authority of India (1329), Bajaj Auto (1499), Hero Motocorp (1912), Jindal Steel & Power (1955), Grasim Industries (1981) and JSW Steel (1990).

This year's Global 2000 companies are from 62 countries, up from 46 in the inaugural 2003 rankings.

In total, they raked in revenues of USD 38 trillion and profits of USD 3 trillion, with assets worth USD 161 trillion and a market value of 44 trillion dollars.