The 100 most expensive companies in the world: Saudi Aramco ahead of Apple, SAP down to 113

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Big Tech dominates:

9 of the 10 most valuable companies in the world come from the USA.

5 of them (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta) have a digital business model.

Europe's most valuable tech group, SAP, only manages 113th place. There are just 3 German companies in the top 150.

Photo: DAMIEN MEYER/ AFP

The USA continues to dominate, despite the slide in prices on the stock exchanges: the market value of the 100 most valuable listed companies in the world fell by around 17 percent in the first half of 2022, from around 36 trillion to almost 30 trillion US dollars.

The 23 tech companies represented in the top 100 have lost an average of 28 percent in value - which means that the US tech giant

has to give up the title of the most expensive company in the world to the Saudi oil company

.

However, this change at the top does not change anything about the dominance of the USA: 9 of the 10 most valuable companies in the world come from the United States, 5 of them (

) from the technology sector.

The semi-annual ranking of the auditing and consulting company EY has a much more important message for German investors and company leaders.

It documents the progressive loss of importance of German companies on the global capital markets.

In 2007 there were still seven German companies in the top 100.

At the end of 2021, there were only 2 with

and

. By the middle of 2022, no German company would make it into the top 100: Germany’s most valuable group ,

, had fallen from 80th place to 113th place.

follows in 120th place, the carmaker

Volkswagen

148th place.

does not even make it into the top 150 after the recent price slide.

SAP, Telekom, VW and Siemens beaten off worldwide

This descent is particularly bitter

for Germany's former flagship company

The most valuable European tech group from Walldorf has lost around a third of its market value since the beginning of the year and was only worth 106 billion dollars as of June 30, 2022.

Although direct competitors such as

and

from the USA also suffered from the tech crash, they fared better in a direct comparison.

Not only the conversion of the business model to the cloud business, but also the management style of SAP boss Christian Klein are causing unrest in Walldorf.

Digitization strengthens the USA and China - and sweeps Germany out of the top 100

Corporate Germany's descent on the global stock exchanges has one reason above all: Digitization is determining more and more areas of the global economy - and German and European companies do not play a decisive role in digital technologies.

The undisputed world market leaders are the Big Tech companies from the USA.

In the United States, more money is also flowing into young tech companies, so that takeover machines like Oracle or Salesforce can draw from a wide range.

Although Germany has also developed a vibrant start-up industry in recent years, most of them still have a long way to go before they make it into the top 100.

"The digitization trend has shrunk the weight of Germany and Europe on the world stock exchanges," says Henrik Ahlers, CEO of EY.

Before the financial crisis at the

.

: The most valuable European company, the Swiss food

, occupies 20th place in the global ranking.

"The weak positioning of Europe and Germany in the technology segment should give us food for thought," comments Ahlers." Compared to Europe, the USA benefited from a greater willingness to take risks on the part of American company founders and significantly better financing conditions: "Especially in the USA, young companies in the over the past decades have succeeded in developing completely new business models and thus revolutionizing entire sectors.

Europe has some catching up to do in these areas."

Tesla is considered a tech, VW and Mercedes are not

In addition to the USA, Asian corporations played a role in shaping the technological change - European corporations, on the other hand, hardly ever played a role, according to the EY boss.

Even former heavyweights such as the German car manufacturers now have to be content with seats in the back rows.

(148),

(225) and

(289) are worth less on the stock exchange than the US carmaker

(rank 6), which, in contrast to the German competition on the stock exchange, is also seen as a technology company and is therefore rated significantly higher becomes.

147 US corporations among the top 300 - and only 10 from Germany

In order to see which industrialized nations are now well ahead of Germany, it is worth taking a look at the extended list of the top 300 companies.

Almost half of the 300 most expensive companies in the world come from the USA (147).

China ranks second with 39 corporations.

France and Great Britain follow in 3rd and 4th place with 13 global players each, followed by Canada and Japan in 5th and 6th place with 11 companies each.

In the top 300 ranking, Germany is only seventh with currently 10 companies, three fewer than six months ago.

These ten German companies in the top 300 include SAP (113), Deutsche Telekom (120), Volkswagen (148), Siemens (152), Allianz (162), Merck (176), Mercedes (225), Bayer (241) , Siemens Healthineers (246) and BMW (289).

In the past, the industrial gases supplier Linde was one of the stock market heavyweights from Germany, but Linde is now worth significantly more than SAP.

But since the merger with the US competitor Praxair, Linde has had its headquarters in Ireland, the Linde boss leads from the USA.

Big Tech dominates the ranking - even after the price slide

Despite the price slide in the tech sector by almost 30 percent since the beginning of the year, the technology sector remains by far the most important sector in the global stock market value ranking.

23 tech companies are represented in the top 100.

These bring it to a market valuation of around 14.3 trillion dollars, almost twice as much as the 20 placed companies from the consumer goods industry.

Health care comes in third place, with the 18 companies in this sector having a combined market value of $4.3 trillion.

The energy sector follows in fourth place with 3 trillion euros - the only industry whose companies recorded gains in the first half of 2022 (19 percent on average).

"Companies in all regions of the world and in almost all sectors lost considerable value," says Ahlers.

Only oil and gas companies were able to benefit from the sharp rise in energy prices and recorded rising share prices." The significantly gloomier economic prospects, high inflation, rising interest rates and massive geopolitical tensions have led to uncertainty - although many of the top companies are still making high profits identify.

Ahlers expects a very difficult second half of the year: "The danger of a global recession is now real."

For Corporate Germany, whose business model is based on free world trade, globalization and high global demand, the prospects are rather bleak.

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