The World’s 50 Most Profitable Companies in 2016

most profitable companies
from Fortune's Global 500 list for 2016

The cumulative sales of the Global 500 – Fortune magazine’s annual list of the biggest companies on the planet, – ranked by revenue, in dollars, for the previous fiscal year - declined for the first time since 2010. Total revenue shrank from $31.2 trillion in fiscal 2014 to $27.6 trillion in 2015, or 11.5%. Profits shrank by 11.2%, to $1.48 trillion. There are plenty of reasons for the reversal. A slowdown in China’s once-booming economy has affected companies worldwide. Growth in the U.S. and Europe remains modest at best. And sustained low oil prices have erased billions in sales for giant petroleum producers like Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Sinopec.

Here is the list of the world’s most profitable companies in 2016:

RankCompanyFortune Global 500 RankProfit ($M)Profit Change
1 Apple 9 53394 +35.1%
2 Industrial & Commercial Bank of China 15 44098 -1.5%
3 China Construction Bank 22 36303 -1.8%
4 Agricultural Bank of China 29 28735 -1.3%
5 Bank of China 35 27186 -1.2%
6 JPMorgan Chase & Co. 55 24442 +12.3%
7 Berkshire Hathaway 11 24083 +21.2%
8 Wells Fargo 67 22894 -0.7%
9 Toyota Motor 8 19264 -2.5%
10 Gilead Sciences 316 18108 +49.6%
11 Verizon 30 17879 +85.8%
12 Novartis 175 17783 +74.2%
13 Citigroup 70 17242 +135.8%
14 Samsung Electronics 13 16532 -24.6%
15 Alphabet 94 16348 +15.6%
16 Exxon Mobil 6 16150 -50.3%
17 Bank of America Corp. 64 15888 +228.7%
18 Johnson & Johnson 103 15409 -5.6%
19 CK Hutchison Holdings 473 15295 +120.2%
20 Walmart 1 14694 -10.2%
21 HSBC Holdings 68 13522 -1.2%
22 AT&T 23 13345 +114.4%
23 IBM 82 13190 +9.7%
24 Gazprom 56 12882 +212.3%
25 GlaxoSmithKline 278 12867 +183.6%
26 Microsoft 63 12193 -44.8%
27 Korea Electric Power 172 11752 +360.5%
28 Intel 158 11420 -2.4%
29 Fannie Mae 40 10954 -22.9%
30 Bank of Communications 153 10586 -0.9%
31 State Grid 2 10201 +4.1%
32 China Mobile Communications 45 10144 -2.9%
33 Oracle 260 9938 -9.3%
34 General Motors 20 9687 +145.3%
35 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 403 9542 +13.7%
36 Nestlé 66 9423 -40.4%
37 Daimler 16 9345 +1.2%
38 Roche Group 167 9212 -9.7%
39 China Merchants Bank 189 9181 +1.2%
40 Cisco Systems 183 8981 +14.4%
41 Ping An Insurance 41 8625 +35.3%
42 Disney 164 8382 +11.7%
43 Siemens 71 8338 +14.4%
44 Twenty-First Century Fox 360 8306 +84%
45 Anheuser-Busch InBev 211 8273 -10.2%
46 Comcast 96 8163 -2.6%
47 Shanghai Pudong Development Bank 227 8052 +5.5%
48 Industrial Bank 195 7989 +4.4%
49 Royal Bank of Canada 297 7979 -2.4%
50 Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group 191 7925 -15.7%

Source: Fortune

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Sergey Karpenko

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