Top 25 Global Technology Companies by Market Cap (end of 2017)

The performance highlights of the Top 25 publicly traded global technology companies have been revealed in the latest research from GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The completed analysis reveals a number of interesting insights. Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft maintained their dominance of the sector in 2017 remaining in 1st, 2nd and 3rd position, respectively.

Amal George, lead analyst at GlobalData, said: ‘‘The year 2017 has been a successful year for several technology companies, during which NVIDIA, Tencent and Nintendo doubled their market cap. On the other hand, International Business Machines and Qualcomm witnessed a dip in fortune as their market cap fell.’’

The top players achieved double-digit revenue growth, with Tencent (72.4 percent) and Facebook (54.2 percent) topping the list. NVIDIA, Applied Materials and Broadcom grew their revenues by 1.3 times.

GlobalData’s  analysis of each business in the top 25 is based on a number of key metrics including their market cap (M Cap), price-earnings ratio (P/E), earnings per share (EPS), enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EV/EBITDA), return on capital employed (RoCE %), return on assets (RoA), research and development as a percentage of sales (R&D/Sales %) and operating margin, to help assess the health of the top players.

The top 10 players reported an average operating margin of 29.4 percent, indicating successful cost containment efforts. As a group, the top 25 registered an average of 14.1 percent RoCE, of which 19 players recorded double-digit RoCE. Average RoA of the group stood at 9.4 percent, with 10 players reporting above average double-digit RoA.

George continued, ‘‘With a cash and short-term investment pile of US$29.4bn and zero debt, Facebook leads the group in terms of liquidity, followed by six players above the average (3.2).’’

Optimistic investor sentiment helped the top 25 stocks trade at an average P/E of 38.7 while the EV/ EBITDA group average pegged at 52.1.

All of the top players continued to focus on R&D activities, with an average R&D to sales ratio of 13.3 percent. Nearly 50 percent of the companies featured above this average.