World's Largest Companies 2013

To speak of the largest companies in the world is to speak of the most important companies with the greatest power and influence at a global level. The first company on the list has a market value similar to Colombia's annual production (GDP) (about 280 billion euros). See here list of countries by GDP.

The conclusions that we can draw from the list are, first of all, that The United States continues to demonstrate that it is the world's leading economic power, no matter how much it is said that hegemony in the world is turning towards Asia. Of the ten most valuable companies in the world, nine are American. By region, of the 50 companies on the list, 28 are American, 13 European (six British, three Swiss, two Belgian, one French and one Dutch), 8 Asian (five Chinese, one Japanese, one from Hong Kong and one from Hong Kong). South Korea) and an Australian. It is true that China will soon surpass the United States in GDP, but even so, economic power will remain in the hands of the United States for a long time. The largest company in Europe is the Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffman-La Roche, ranked 15th in the world.

Among the most important companies in the world, the dominant sector is information and communication technologies (ICTs), three of the top four in this sector. Among them, we must highlight the significant fall in Apple's shares in the last year, which has made it lose the "title" of the world's largest company. From Apple itself they went so far as to say that one day it would be worth the same as the GDP of Spain (about 3.5 times greater than that of Colombia).

Precisely the largest company in the countries Spanish speakers, Ecopetrol, is Colombian, which is ranked 69th in the world and is the third largest company in Latin America, after Brazil's Ambev and Petrobras. It is followed by the Mexican América Móvil (position 81) and the three Spanish Inditex, Telefónica and Banco Santander, in positions 84, 103 and 133 in the world. Both Telefónica and Santander have lost a few positions on the list due to the current economic crisis.

Rank	Company	Country	Market Capitalization
1	Exxon Mobil Corp.	USES.	308,28
2	Apple Inc.	USES.	294,93
3	Google Inc.	USES.	226,17
4	Microsoft Corp.	USES.	220,32
5	Berkshire Hathaway Inc.	USES.	214,01
6	Wall-Mart Stores Inc.	USES.	187,66
7	Johnson & Johnson	USES.	186,83
8	General Electric	USES.	185,30
9	PetroChina Company Ltd	China	177,51
10	Chevron Corp.	USES.	177,28
11	Indutrial & Comercial Bank of China Ltd.	China	173,11
12	Wells Fargo & Co.	USES.	168,20
13	Toyota Motor Corp.	Japan	165,41
14	Procter & Gamble	USES.	164,19
15	Hoffmann-La Roche	Switzerland	163,01
16	International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)	USES.	162,85
17	Nestlé S.A.	Switzerland	162,61
18	China Mobile Ltd.	Hong Kong	160,51
19	Royal Dutch Shell plc	Netherlands	157,84
20	JP Morgan Chase	USES.	152,33
21	Pfizer Inc.	USES.	151,30
22	HSBC Holdings plc	U.K.	150,23
23	Novartis International AG	Switzerland	147,20
24	AT&T Inc.	USES.	145,82
25	The Coca-Cola Company	USES.	138,36
26	Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.	South Korea	133,02
27	China Construction Bank Corp.	China	130,89
28	BHP Billiton plc	U.K.	115,49
29	BHP Billiton Ltd.	Australia	115,39
30	Citigroup Inc.	USES.	112,73
31	Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.	Belgium	111,40
32	Verizon Communications Inc.	USES.	110,63
33	Philip Morris International Inc.	USES.	109,92
34	Merck & Co., Inc.	USES.	107,39
35	Oracle Corp.	USES.	107,06
36	Bank of America Corp.	USES.	107,03
37	Sanofi S.A.	France	105,68
38	Vodafone Group plc	U.K.	105,58
39	SPDR S&P 500 ETF	USES.	102,98
40	Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.	China	101,62
41	BP plc	U.K.	100,99
42	Cisco Systems, Inc.	USES.	99,86
43	Amazon.com, Inc.	USES.	98,61
44	PepsiCo, Inc.	USES.	97,41
45	GlaxoSmithKline plc (gsk)	U.K.	95,30
46	Visa, Inc.	USES.	92,43
47	Unilever plc	U.K.	91,89
48	Unilever N.V.	Netherlands	91,85
49	Bank of China Ltd.	China	91,84
50	Intel Corp.	USES.	91,17
…	…	…	…
69	Ecopetrol S.A.	Colombia	67,03
81	America Movil	Mexico	60,98
84	Inditex S.A.	Spain	59,90
103	Santander Bank	Spain	54,59
133	Telefonica S.A.	Spain	45,26
159	Wallmart of Mexico and Central America	Mexico	38,88
186	BBVA	Spain	35,67
	Data in billions of €