China, India tie for top place on Forbes Asia’s Fab 50 list

SINGAPORE - Asia’s economic powerhouses China and India have tied for top place with the most number of firms on Forbes Asia’s Fab 50 List, an annual roster of the best 50 big-cap and profitable companies in the region. Both countries accounted for 32 companies or over 60 percent of the firms on the list this year.

Mainland China, which has topped the list since 2008, held steady with 16 entries,unchanged from last year. Of these, 10 firms are returnees including Lenovo Group. The company commands the biggest share of the PC market in China, and makes the list for the fourth time after dropping out last year. Also returning to the list are two other Chinese technology companies: Digital China Holdings and Tencent Holdings.

India also had 16 entries on the list, compared with 13 last year and only three when the inaugural Fab 50 List was published in 2005. A lot of Indian companies display staying power with 11 firms returning to the list. Perennial top performer Infosys Technologies joins the roster for the sixth straight year. Making their appearance for the fifth consecutive time are Bharat Heavy Electricals, HDFC Bank and Larsen & Toubro. Other Indian returnees include ITC and Axis Bank.

The Fab 50 List appears in the latest issue of Forbes Asia. The 50 firms were picked from a shortlist of 936 that had revenues or market capitalization of at least three billion dollars as at September 1, 2010, and a five-year record for revenue, operating earnings and return on capital. Other criteria included recent financial result, share price movement and outlook.

This year, Hong Kong and Taiwan tied for third place with four companies each. Hong Kong’s Li and Fung is the other firm apart from Infosys that has made the Fab 50 in all six years since the list began. Taiwan’s Acer, the world’s No. 2 PC maker, has made the list every year except in 2006.

Coming in fifth is South Korea with three entries: Glovis, NHN and Samsung Engineering. Following behind are Australia and Japan with two entries each while Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand rounded off the list with one entry each. The number of Japanese firms making the cut has declined over the years since the list started in 2005. Japan topped the inaugural list with 13 firms but since then its entries have dwindled along with the country’s economic stagnation.

This year’s Fab 50 List includes 18 new faces. Dongfang Electric, one of six new Chinese companies on the list, makes power-generation equipment and has produced more boilers, turbines and generators than any other company in the world. Its president Wen Shugang tells Forbes Asia how his Sichuan-based company survived the devastating earthquake in 2008 in the latest issue of the magazine.

Another notable new entry is Thai coal miner Banpu, which has been steadily expanding overseas for 12 years. Its revenue grew 20 percent last year to 1.7 billion dollars, and profits jumped 61 percent to 427 million dollars.

The Fab 50 companies will be honored at an award ceremony and dinner in Bangkok, Thailand on December 8 2010.

The full Fab 50 List can be found in the tenth anniversary issue of Forbes Asia, which is available on newsstands now. (ANI)