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Stock Exchange in New York (2020): "The importance of Europe on the world stock exchanges is shrinking"
Photo: Courtney Crow / AP
Driven by the soaring tech giants, US companies have expanded their dominance on the stock exchanges.
Among the 100 most valuable listed companies in the world are 61 from the USA alone, three more than in the previous year, shows a study by the consulting firm EY.
There are no longer any European companies in the top ten and only two that are not based in the USA - the oil company Saudi Aramco in fourth place and the Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC in tenth place.
While the weights are shifting more and more towards the USA, German companies are being left behind, as the study shows.
While seven companies from Germany were among the top 100 at the end of 2007, there are now only two: SAP (88th place) and Siemens (100th).
Apple is undisputedly at the top of the ranking with a market value of almost 3.0 trillion US dollars (around 2.65 trillion euros), followed by Microsoft (2.6 trillion dollars) and the Google parent company Alphabet (2.0 trillion euros) Dollar).
The most expensive company from Europe, the French luxury goods group LVMH with brands such as Louis Vuitton and Moët & Chandon, lands in 19th place.
Europe's importance has shrunk massively since the financial crisis
"The importance of Europe on the world stock exchanges is shrinking," says Henrik Ahlers, Chairman of the EY Management Board.
The digitalization boost triggered by the pandemic will primarily benefit technology companies - and most of them come from the USA.
Established car, pharmaceutical and raw materials groups play a major role in Europe.
Before the global financial crisis in late 2007, 46 of the 100 most valuable companies in the world came from Europe, according to the study.
Now there are 16.
This picture says little about the strengths of local companies, says Ahlers.
In fact, Germany has many medium-sized world market leaders and also world-class unlisted corporations such as Lidl and Aldi or the automotive supplier Bosch.
However, the fact is apparently that investors trust companies from other industries and countries in many cases with better growth prospects, according to Ahlers.
After all, there are success stories like that of the Mainz vaccine manufacturer Biontech, which reached 296th place in the ranking.
In addition, German corporations could play a pioneering role in networked industry, says EY.
Local industrial companies are working on interlinking production with IT systems and data in order to achieve productivity gains, explains Ahlers.
"Companies could emerge that have the potential to decisively shape the way in which production is carried out in the future and that can stand up to US corporations in this area."
hej / dpa-AFX