Chinese firms have overtaken their Japanese peers on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest companies for the first time, and will continue to gain market share at the expense of the more developed competitors, the U.S. business magazine said on Monday.
China had 73 firms on the list, which ranks the world’s biggest companies by revenue, compared to 61 last year. Japan stayed steady, with 68 firms. The biggest Chinese firms on the list are state-owned energy and utilities companies Sinopec Group, China National Petroleum and State Grid , which grabbed the fourth, fifth and sixth spots on the list.
“(High oil prices) contributed to Chinese companies gaining on the list but we have also got a number of private companies on the list as well, including Huawei, the big manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, and that’s gaining at the expense of some of the Western companies they compete against,” Stephanie Mehta, Executive Editor of Fortune, told CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday.
The rise of the Chinese enterprise will continue, Mehta said, signaling that a shift in the global economy is underway. The U.S. for example, which has dominated the list for the past decade, lost more companies during that period than any other country.
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