World’s Biggest Companies
When the sky falls, the giants get hit first.
The world’s biggest industrial companies learned that proverb in 1991, with profits tumbling 28.2%, sales gains lagging inflation and the number of money-losers more than doubling from a year earlier, Fortune magazine reports.
“It was a bad year everywhere,” the twice-monthly business glossy said in its third annual “Global 500” tally to be published in the July 27 edition. “The pain was global in 1991.”
Fortune’s numbers-crunching showed that the wounds were felt most deeply in the United States and Europe, while they were just beginning toward the year’s end in Japan.
The Fortune list also showed America’s lead as home to the biggies dwindled to 157 from 164 spots in 1990, while Japan strengthened its No. 2 position with 119 versus 111 a year earlier. Britain was No. 3 with 43, the same as in 1990.
Here are the top 25 entries in the Fortune list of the 500 biggest industrial companies in the world, ranked by 1991 sales.
Rank last 1991 sales Rank Company/country year (in billions) 1. General Motors, United States unchanged $123.78 2. Royal Dutch-Shell, U.K.-Netherlands unchanged $103.83 3. Exxon, United States unchanged $103.24 4. Ford Motor, United States unchanged $88.96 5. Toyota Motor, Japan 6th $78.06 6. IBM, United States 5th $65.39 7. IRI, Italy unchanged $64.10 8. General Electric, United States 10th $60.24 9. British Petroleum, Britain 8th $58.36 10. Daimler-Benz, Germany 11th $57.32 11. Mobil, United States 9th $56.91 12. Hitachi, Japan unchanged $56.05 13. Matsushita Electric Industrial, Japan 17th $48.60 14. Philip Morris, United States 15th $48.11 15. Fiat, Italy 13th $46.81 16. Volkswagen, Germany unchanged $46.04 17. Siemens, Germany 24th $44.86 18. Samsung Group, Korea 14th $43.70 19. Nissan Motor, Japan 20th $42.91 20. Unilever, Britain-Netherlands 21st $41.26 21. ENI, Italy 18th $41.05 22. DuPont, United States unchanged $38.03 23. Texaco, United States 19th $37.55 24. Chevron, United States 23rd $36.80 25. Elf Aquitaine, France 26th $36.32
Source: Associated Press, Fortune
