MagazineGlobal 500

More than 60% of the world’s biggest companies are concentrated in just 3 countries. Here’s a map of the Coins2Day Global 500

Matthew HeimerBy Matthew HeimerExecutive Editor, Features
Matthew HeimerExecutive Editor, Features

Matt Heimer oversees Coins2Day's longform storytelling in digital and print and is the editorial coordinator of Coins2Day magazine. He is also a co-chair of the Coins2Day Global Forum and the lead editor of Coins2Day's annual Change the World list.

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Nicolas RappBy Nicolas RappInformation Graphics Director
Nicolas RappInformation Graphics Director

Nicolas Rapp is the former information graphics director at Coins2Day.

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This map-and-chart package captures one of the top business stories of the past two decades: China’s rise in the global corporate hierarchy. Greater China (including Taiwan) surpassed the U.S. For the largest number of Global 500 companies for the first time in fiscal 2018; it widened its lead in 2020, when COVID shut down much of the world and China kept humming. One striking subplot in this story is the degree of state involvement in China’s big businesses: 87 of the companies from mainland China on this year’s list are majority or entirely government-owned. (In the U.S., just three fit that description: the Postal Service and real estate finance agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Can state-owned companies act nimbly and stay competitive in a fragmenting global economy? That’s the next chapter.

This article appears in the August/September 2022 issue of Coins2Day with the headline, “Business, bosses, and borders.”

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