The Fortune Magazine Global 500

Photo of a Walmart store from the Associated Press via the Wall Street Journal.

Many people are familiar with Fortune magazine’s list of the 500 largest U.S.-based firms, measured by their revenue in 2022. (Note: It’s easy to confuse the Fortune 500 with the S&P 500. Firms are included in the S&P 500 on the basis of their market capitalization—the value of all of their outstanding shares of stock—rather than on the basis of their revenue. The S&P 500 is used to compute the most widely followed stock market index. See Microeconomics and Economics, Chapter 8, Section 8.2, and Macroeconomics and Essentials of Economics, Chapter 6, Section 6.2.) 

Fortune also compiles a global 500 list, which includes firms based anywhere in the world. The table below shows the top 10 firms on this Fortune list. With more than $600 billion in revenue in 2022, Walmart tops the list. Five of the ten largest firms are in the oil industry. The three firms based in China are owned by the Chinese government. The Saudi government owns more than half of Saudi Aramco. 

Firm	Industry	Country
Walmart	Retailing	United States
Saudi Aramco	Oil	Saudi Arabia
State Grid	Public utility	China
Amazon	Retailing	United States
China National Petroleum	Oil	China
Sinopec Group	Oil	China
Exxon Mobil	Oil	United States
Apple	Consumer electronics	United States
Shell	Oil	United Kingdom
UnitedHealth Group	Health insurance	United States

The following table shows how many firms among the top 100 are headquartered in the listed countries. All countries that have more than one firm located in them are included. Far more of these large firms are located in the United States and China than in any of the other countries. Germany, Japan, France, and South Korea are the only other countries that are the headquarters for more than two firms.

Country	Number of firms
United States	38
China	30
Germany	7
Japan	5
France	4
South Korea	3
India	2
United Kingdom	2
Italy	2

The Fortune article can be found here.