Market Capitalization of Large Groups Passes $ 20 Billion

The market capitalization of the world's 100 largest companies surged 15% this year, setting a new record, after rising 12% in 2017, according to a study released Thursday by the PwC audit firm.

The 100 largest companies in the world totaled $ 20,035 billion as of March 31, 2018, compared to $ 17,438 billion at the same date in 2017, according to the PwC study (PricewaterhouseCoopers).

"The symbolic cap of $ 20,000 billion was crossed for the first time, the good economic health of last year has resulted in the market valuation of companies, "said AFP Philippe Kubisa, partner specializing capital markets at PwC.

US companies dominate this ranking once again, but China has gained ground.

In total, 54 companies from the United States are in the list, compared to 55 last year, representing 61% of the world's market capitalization, compared to 22% for China and 17% for Europe, the study continues.

Two Chinese companies have climbed into the top 10, exclusively American last year. The Chinese giants Tencent Internet and Alibaba online trade have won the 5th and 7th places.

The top three still consists of the American behemoths Apple, Alphabet (parent company of Google) and Microsoft. [19659003] US groups ($ 12.187 billion in market capitalization in 2018) are followed by China, ranked second with 12 firms ranked and market capitalization rising 57% to $ 2.822 billion.

Companies Europeans are now 23 in the ranking, compared with 22 in 2017, for a market capitalization which rose 11% to 3,362 billion dollars.

After the United States and China, the United Kingdom retains its third place, followed by Switzerland

Finally, France managed to maintain the fifth position in the ranking, despite a major fall in one of its clbadified companies.

The p The first French market capitalization of this ranking is LVMH (48th), followed by Total (53rd), then L'Oréal (64th) and finally Sanofi, which dropped from 57th to 90th.