While 13 of the 14 in the latest list have dropped in their rankings, four companies — Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Petroleum, state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), real estate giant Unitech and home loan giant HDFC — have dropped out of the league entirely.
The latest FT Global 500 list, published this weekend by UK business daily the Financial Times, is based on the market capitalization of companies as of March 31, 2008. The previous ranking was based on figures ending December 2007.
Reliance Industries, the flagship company of India’s largest corporate house Mukesh Ambani Group, ranked 80th in the latest list, topped by US energy giant ExxonMobil.
Except for tobacco consumer goods major ITC, which ranked 484, all other Indian companies saw their rankings drop from the previous list.
Combined, the market value of these 14 companies has fallen by about $150 billion since December last year and is currently around $440 billion.
There were 17 Indian companies on the earlier list and had a total market capitalization of around $590 billion.
In the country-level ranking based on the total market cap of all their companies listed, India is ranked 15th. The US leads the list with 169 companies worth $9.6 trillion, followed by the UK, China, France and Japan.
Other countries ranked ahead of India include Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Russia, Spain, Brazil, Hong Kong, Italy and Australia.
In terms of the number of companies on the list, India and Russia are jointly followed by the US (169), UK (35), Japan (39), France (31), China (25), Canada (24) and Germany (22). Among Indian companies, RIL is ranked 148th and 206th, followed by two state-owned companies ONGC and NTPC respectively.
While RIL has slipped 15 places from its 65th rank in the previous list, ONGC and NTPC have also moved up from their 115th and 163rd ranks.
Other Indian companies include Sunil Mittal-led telecom firm Bharti Airtel at 218 (down from 193), realty major DLF at 329 (down from 195) and Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications at 350 (down from 252).
However, ITC moved up six places to 484th place, even as its market value fell from $20.8 billion to $19.38 billion.
Real estate major DLF saw its market value fall sharply by $40.66 billion, followed by the country’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank with a decline of $38.51 billion and Steel Authority of India ($35.46 billion).
RIL, the country’s most valuable company, fell to $82 billion from $105 billion in the last listing, reducing its market value by about $21 billion.
In the global list, ExxonMobil has replaced China’s PetroChina, while US industrial giant GE has retained its third place. Other companies in the top 10 include Gazprom, China Mobile, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Microsoft, AT&T, Royal Dutch Shell and P&G.
