Markets
The World’s 20 Most Profitable Companies
The World’s 20 Most Profitable Companies
The biggest chunk of the earnings pie is increasingly split by fewer and fewer companies.
In the U.S. for example, about 50% of all profit generated by public companies goes to just 30 companies — back in 1975, it took 109 companies to accomplish the same feat:
Year | Number of Firms Generating 50% of Earnings | Total Public Companies (U.S.) | Portion (%) |
---|---|---|---|
1975 | 109 | 4,819 | 2.2% |
2015 | 30 | 3,766 | 0.8% |
This power-law dynamic also manifests itself at a global level — and perhaps it’s little surprise that the world’s most profitable companies generate mind-bending returns that would make any accountant blush.
Which Company Makes the Most Per Day?
Today’s infographic comes to us from HowMuch.net, and it uses data from Fortune to illustrate how much profit top global companies actually rake in on a daily basis.
The 20 most profitable companies in the world are listed below in order, and we’ve also broken the same data down per second:
Rank | Company | Country | Profit per Day | Profit Per Second |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | Saudi Aramco | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | $304,039,726 | $3,519 |
#2 | Apple | 🇺🇸 United States | $163,098,630 | $1,888 |
#3 | Industrial & Commercial Bank of China | 🇨🇳 China | $123,293,973 | $1,427 |
#4 | Samsung Electronics | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $109,301,918 | $1,265 |
#5 | China Construction Bank | 🇨🇳 China | $105,475,068 | $1,221 |
#6 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 🇺🇸 United States | $88,969,863 | $1,030 |
#7 | Alphabet | 🇺🇸 United States | $84,208,219 | $975 |
#8 | Agricultural Bank of China | 🇨🇳 China | $83,990,411 | $972 |
#9 | Bank of America Corp. | 🇺🇸 United States | $77,115,068 | $893 |
#10 | Bank of China | 🇨🇳 China | $74,589,589 | $863 |
#11 | Royal Dutch Shell | 🇬🇧 🇳🇱 UK/Netherlands | $63,978,082 | $740 |
#12 | Gazprom | 🇷🇺 Russia | $63,559,178 | $736 |
#13 | Wells Fargo | 🇺🇸 United States | $61,350,685 | $710 |
#14 | 🇺🇸 United States | $60,580,822 | $701 | |
#15 | Intel | 🇺🇸 United States | $57,679,452 | $668 |
#16 | Exxon Mobil | 🇺🇸 United States | $57,095,890 | $661 |
#17 | AT&T | 🇺🇸 United States | $53,068,493 | $614 |
#18 | Citigroup | 🇺🇸 United States | $49,438,356 | $572 |
#19 | Toyota Motor | 🇯🇵 Japan | $46,526,027 | $538 |
#20 | China Development Bank | 🇨🇳 China | $45,874,795 | $531 |
The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, known to most as Saudi Aramco, is by far the world’s most profitable company, raking in a stunning $304 million of profits every day. When translated to a more micro scale, that works out to $3,519 per second.
You’ve likely seen Saudi Aramco in the news lately, though for other reasons.
The giant state-owned company has been rearing to go public at an aggressive $2 trillion valuation, but it’s since delayed that IPO multiple times, most recently stating the listing will take place in December 2019 or January 2020. Company-owned refineries were also the subject of drone attacks last month, which took offline 5.7 million bpd of oil production temporarily.
Despite these challenges, Saudi Aramco still stands pretty tall — after all, such blows are softened when you churn out the same amount of profit as Apple, Alphabet, and Facebook combined.
Numbers on an Annual Basis
Bringing in over $300 million per day of profit is pretty hard to comprehend, but the numbers are even more unfathomable when they are annualized.
Rank | Company | Country | Profit |
---|---|---|---|
#1 | Saudi Aramco | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | $110,974,500,000 |
#2 | Apple | 🇺🇸 United States | $59,531,000,000 |
#3 | Industrial & Commercial Bank of China | 🇨🇳 China | $45,002,300,000 |
#4 | Samsung Electronics | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $39,895,200,000 |
#5 | China Construction Bank | 🇨🇳 China | $38,498,400,000 |
#6 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 🇺🇸 United States | $32,474,000,000 |
#7 | Alphabet | 🇺🇸 United States | $30,736,000,000 |
#8 | Agricultural Bank of China | 🇨🇳 China | $30,656,500,000 |
#9 | Bank of America Corp. | 🇺🇸 United States | $28,147,000,000 |
#10 | Bank of China | 🇨🇳 China | $27,225,200,000 |
#11 | Royal Dutch Shell | 🇬🇧 🇳🇱 UK/Netherlands | $23,352,000,000 |
#12 | Gazprom | 🇷🇺 Russia | $23,199,100,000 |
#13 | Wells Fargo | 🇺🇸 United States | $22,393,000,000 |
#14 | 🇺🇸 United States | $22,112,000,000 | |
#15 | Intel | 🇺🇸 United States | $21,053,000,000 |
#16 | Exxon Mobil | 🇺🇸 United States | $20,840,000,000 |
#17 | AT&T | 🇺🇸 United States | $19,370,000,000 |
#18 | Citigroup | 🇺🇸 United States | $18,045,000,000 |
#19 | Toyota Motor | 🇯🇵 Japan | $16,982,000,000 |
#20 | China Development Bank | 🇨🇳 China | $16,744,300,000 |
On an annual basis, Saudi Aramco is raking in $111 billion of profit per year, and that’s with oil prices sitting in the $50-$70 per barrel range.
To put this number in perspective, take a look at Chevron. The American oil giant is one of the 20 biggest companies on the S&P 500, but it generated just $15 billion in profit in 2018 and currently sits at a $221 billion market capitalization.
That puts Chevron’s profits at roughly 10% of Aramco’s — and if Aramco does IPO at a $2 trillion valuation, that would put Chevron at roughly 10% of its market cap, as well.
Markets
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.
All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.
Rank | Company | YTD Change (%) |
---|---|---|
1 | Nvidia | 90.8 |
2 | Meta | 44.3 |
3 | Amazon | 16.9 |
4 | Microsoft | 12 |
5 | 0.2 | |
6 | Apple | -6.7 |
7 | Tesla | -28.5 |
From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.
Nvidia and Meta Lead
Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.
The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.
Apple and Tesla in the Red
Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.
Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.
Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.
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