April 10th, 2014, Beijing: Today at the 2014 Boao Forum for Asia, official forum publication Boao Review, with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and FTChinese.com, released the 2014 Top 100 Most Influential Asian Companies Ranking and report. Twenty-eight companies based in mainland China made the list. PetroChina, Sinopec, China Mobile, and Bank of China are among the top ten.
The ranking is designed to reflect Asian companies' performance in key indicators of influence and to encourage them to break free of the sole pursuit of revenue, unleashing new engines of growth and creating a system of sustainable, long-term influence that will ultimately advance the overall transformation of the Asian economy itself. The ranking of listed Asian companies was generated using a system based on indicators including corporate revenue and growth, innovation and research, brand value, global footprint, and social responsibility.
The global economy has entered a period of deep-seated adjustment, with all regions facing distinct challenges and opportunities. Asian countries have played a leading role in the global economic recovery. Asia has become one of the world's most dynamic and high-potential regions. In the wake of the financial crisis, China, Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, and other emerging Asian economies continue to assert themselves as key players in the global economic structure as powerful engines of growth and recovery. Driving this structural shift are Asia's companies. It is based on this understanding that Boao Review, Roland Berger, and FTChinese.com have developed and published the 100 Most Influential Asian Companies ranking. Boao Review publisher Gao Song said, "The companies on our ranking are influential Asian companies that will be globally significant in the future and whose values and influence will have a positive impact on the global business community."
"Asia's economic transformation is moving forward. As the market matures, competition will become fiercer. Companies that continue to pursue only revenue growth will suffer from operational difficulties inside and out," said Charles-Edouard Bouee, Roland Berger Global COO and Asia President. "Fortunately, our analysis shows that many Asian companies have already realized this, which is reflected in their scores."
South Korean and Japanese companies lead the way on the ranking in terms of overall influence. The top five companies are Samsung Electronics, Hyundai, Toyota, Hitachi, and Sony. PetroChina, Sinopec, China Mobile, Bank of China, Hutchison Whampoa, Foxconn, Gree, and CNOOC are among the greater China-based companies in the top fifty that span a wide range of industries, including energy, telecommunications, finance, IT products and services, consumer goods, and real estate.
The ranking is accompanied by an in-depth analysis, which posits that already several leading Asian companies have begun to make efforts to break the development bottlenecks resulting from single-minded pursuit of revenue growth, achieving greater success in the region and even globally. Companies based in Asia's developed economies were especially strong in the innovation indicator, ranking higher even than the global top five. Also, having benefited from rapid economic growth, the top five companies based in Asia's emerging economies ranked highly in the financial and growth indicators, similarly outperforming the global top five. Roland Berger independent director, Mr. Timothy T.C.So suggested that the promising development prospects for these Asian companies surely make the wait worthwhile.
The ranking and report categorize companies by region and industry. Japan, as Asia's most typical developed economy, is home to forty-seven of the hundred companies on the list. The rapid development of the Greater China region in recent years puts forty companies on the list, of which twenty-eight are mainland companies, seven are Hong Kong based, and five are Taiwanese. While South Korea only has nine companies on the ranking, their overall performance is extremely high, as evidenced by their sweep of the top two spots.
Overall, Japanese and South Korean companies are more globally influential than the regional average, but the gap between Chinese and South Korean companies is narrowing and there is high potential for improvement in other countries. "Asia, as a cluster of emerging markets, consumer markets, and manufacturing markets, is developing rapidly, which sets the stage for many new opportunities and challenges," said Tracy Zhang, President of FTChinese.com." Powerful companies are transforming continuously and are increasingly adopting a development model that encourages innovation-driven growth. Asian companies will continue to shrink the gap between themselves and Europe and other developed regions."
Finance outnumbered the other industries on the ranking, with twenty-two financial companies listed. The automotive industry contributed sixteen companies, while consumer electronics companies, due to their strong performance in R&D and development, total thirteen out of the one hundred. The chemical, logistics, retail, mining, and pharmaceutical industries all had a relatively weak showing on the ranking, indicating room for improvement.
Despite strong momentum, the data show that leading companies in Asia's developing countries are relatively weak in terms of innovation, brand values, global footprint, and social responsibility, which are precisely the four indicators that point to sustainable, stable development. "We hope that the ranking will provide Asian companies with a more nuanced understanding of their development status and thus encourage them to explore new trends and directions and dig more deeply into their potential, thereby advancing Asia's development," said Boao Review publisher Gao Song.
Media Enquiries:
Zhan Zhao, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants