3 Chinese companies in prestigious Fortune 500 top 5 rankings

Three Chinese enterprises have made it to the top five in the prestigious Fortune 500 list of the world's biggest companies, reports thepaper.cn.

Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine. [Photo: VCG]

The American food retailer Wal-Mart tops the rankings for the fourth year in a row, but then is followed by Chinese companies: State Grid, Sinopec and PetroChina.

In all 115 firms from China appear on the list, which was released by FORTUNEChina.com, on July 20, 2017.

In terms of size of profit, Apple remains top of the list, China's commercial banks, including ICBC, CCG, ABC, and BOC, taking up positions from the second to the fifth. ICBC even ranks first according to total assets.

Among Chinese companies on the list of Return on Equity (ROE), Huawei, Midea, Tencent, Geely, and Vanke come out on top. Midea, whose president Fang Hongbo was awarded "Chinese businessman of the year" by Fortune China earlier this year, becomes the only listed household appliance company.

10 Chinese companies have made their debuts on Fortune 500 list this year, increasing the number of listed Chinese companies to 115.

Apart from the financial industry, which was the greatest contributor to China's Fortune 500 companies, there are 19 Chinese companies coming from the fields of energy, oil refining, and mining industry and 14 from real estate, engineering, and the construction industry.

With Alibaba and Tencent newly listed, China now has three of the six biggest internet service providers in the world, catching up with the United States.