6 Philippine Firms Land on Forbes List of World's Biggest, Most Valuable, and Powerful Companies

Six Philippine companies made it to Forbes Magazine’s annual Global 2000 list, an international ranking of the world’s largest, most valuable, and most powerful publicly held firms. 

Sy-owned BDO Unibank Inc. was the highest ranked Philippine company on the list. It climbed to 1018th from its 1072nd spot in 2018.   

BDO’s parent holding firm, SM Investment Corp. followed at 1,092nd. The holding company fell from its 883rd rank. 

San Miguel Corp.’s biggest shareholder, Top Frontier landed the 1,198th spot up from 1210th. 

Meanwhile, Ayala Corp., the Philippines oldest conglomerate dropped to 1,213th spot from 1216th the previous year.  

The two other local companies that made it to the list are Metrobank and JG Summit. The Ty-led, Metrobank improved at 1639th position from 1,750th. Meanwhile, the Gokongwei family’s JG Summit fell to 1,720th place from 1506th. 

The Forbes 17th annual ranking of the biggest public companies graded firms using four metrics: sales, profits, assets and market value.  

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China landed the top spot for the seventh consecutive year.  

JPMorgan Chase & Co displaced China Construction Bank for second place while the Agricultural Bank of China took the fourth spot.  

Bank of America was ranked fifth followed by Apple in the sixth spot. Ping An Insurance is at seventh place followed by Bank of China. Royal Dutch Shell and Wells Fargo ranked ninth and 10th respectively. 

Forbes Magazine notes the financial sector overall had a good year. A total of 453 companies that made it to the list are from banks and diversified financials industry. Five of the companies in the top 10 are from the financial sector including China’s “Big Four” banks. 

U.S.-based firms dominated the rankings as 575 companies made it to the list. China- and Hong Kong-based companies followed with 309 firms while Japan was home to 223 companies in the rankings. 

Forbes says its annual ranking of the world’s largest public companies “is a reflection of the state of the global economy today: who’s on top, who’s growing and who’s seen better days.”