Best of The Biggest: How Profitable Are The World's Largest Companies?

You’ve met the world’s largest, most powerful public companies, but how much do you know about their bottom line?

Last week, FORBES published the Global 2000, a comprehensive list of the world’s biggest, most powerful public companies. Through calculating a composite score of sales, profits, assets, and market value, our list answers one simple question: what are the world’s largest companies?

For investors, understanding the size of a company is just a start. While global corporations with enormous size offer the advantage of scale, profitability is what matters at the end of the day. To take a deeper look at the Global 2000′s bottom line, FORBES analyzes the net profit margin — a key ratio to measure how much a company actually keeps in earnings out of every dollar of sales – of the top 10 Global 2000 members in five different industries.

With an astounding 42% profit margin, Pfizer PFE -0.65% (No. 45) leads the top 10 drug companies which have an average of 19% profit margin — the highest of all five industries. Its $106 billion take-over target, British drug maker AstraZeneca (No. 183), has the lowest profit margin with just above 10%. While the prospect of the deal remains uncertain, the sharp contrast between the two companies’ profit margin seems to provide a supporting evidence for Pfizer.

to be Continued Click here..

Source by- forbes.com

Best of The Biggest: How Profitable Are The World's Largest Companies?