Global 500 Companies for 2011

CNN Money has released its listing of the Global 500 companies based on revenue for 2011. The list can be found here for anyone interested in having a look at the complete 500.

The Top 10 companies in the world are shown below.

The Number 1 company with annual revenue of over US$421 billion is Wal-Mart Stores, headquartered in Arkansas in the USA. Wal-Mart employs a staggering 2,100,000 people. This is Wal-Mart’s second year at the number 1 spot.

Royal Dutch Shell, or ‘Shell Oil’ for short, came in at number 2 with income of US$378 billion for the year and employs 97,000 people.

Interestingly six of the Top 10 companies in the world are petroleum-based companies. These are: Royal Dutch Shell; Exxon Mobil; BP; Sinopec Group; China National Petroleum; and Chevron. I guess this underlines the fact that crude is the number one traded commodity in the world.

Following are some companies you might have thought should have been higher up the list than they are:

• At 20 is General Motors.
• At 25 is the Ford Motor Company.
• At 42 is the largest food company in the world, Nestle.
• Down at 52 is IBM.
• At 79 is BMW.
• At 111 is Apple.
• At 120 is Microsoft.
• At 140 is Rio Tinto Mining.
• At 143 is Nokia.
• At 159 is BHP Billiton.
• At 215 is Cisco Systems who make the bulk of all networking equipment in the world.
• At 226 is Walt Disney.
• At 249 is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
• At 256 is Coca Cola.
• At 270 is Amazon.

I seriously would have expected Amazon (270), Coca Cola (256), BHP Billiton (159), and Microsoft (120) to all be higher up the list than they are.