Reliance Industries leads 58 Indian firms in Forbes' 'Global 2000' latest list
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is the highest ranked Indian firm in Forbes magazine's 'Global 2000' list this year, which sees the number of Indian companies in 2017 rising to 58 from last year's 56.
"Reliance Industries has witnessed a surge in investor confidence at the stock markets after the launch of its telecom arm Reliance Jio Infocomm late last year," Forbes' India edition said in a statement here on Thursday.
The American magazine said the ranking is based on a mix of four metrics -- sales, profits, assets and market value -- with Forbes giving equal weightage to all four.
Banks and IT companies dominate the ranking among Indian firms in the list of the world's biggest, most powerful and valuable publicly-listed companies.
Reliance Industries is followed by State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, ranked 244 this year (149 last year), and state-run oil explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation(ONGC) ranked 246 (220 last year).
Four other Indian banks, which are all privately owned -- HDFC Bank (258), ICICI Bank (310), Axis Bank (463) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (744) -- are among the top 20 Indian companies in the overall list.
Tata Motors has retained its sixth position among Indian companies, but fell in terms of overall ranking to 290 (278 last year).
At the global level, China and the US, whose companies make up more than 40 percent of the list, continue to dominate the top 10 list.
China's banking giants crowded the top of the 2017 list. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China got the top rank for the fifth consecutive year, while China Construction Bank retained the second spot.
Two other Chinese banks -- Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China -- remained in the top ten.
US giant General Electric rose to number 14, as against 68 in 2016, while e-commerce major Amazon also jumped to 83 this year, as compared to 237th rank in 2016.
