China News Service, August 11th. The Fortune Global 500 list, which measures global corporate competitiveness, was unveiled on August 10. The number of Chinese companies on the list reached 133, demonstrating China's tremendous economic development. Taking the real estate industry as an example, Country Garden, a leading company on the list for four years, has attracted great attention at home and abroad with its fastest ranking rise last year. A powerful footnote to the rise of Chinese private enterprises on the world stage.
The list shows that in 2019, Country Garden achieved a revenue of US$703.35 (485.908 billion yuan), ranking 147th in the world. Compared with 467 on the list for the first time in 2017, Country Garden has advanced 320 places. In the past four years, Country Garden has deduced the development logic of the strong, Hengqiang, following the pace of China's urbanization, maintaining steady and high-quality growth, and maintaining its leading position in the industry. As of the end of 2019, Country Garden has deployed more than 2,000 projects in mainland China, covering 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, 282 prefecture-level cities, and 1,299 districts and counties, providing the masses with affordable housing products.
Last year, the number of Chinese companies on the list surpassed the United States for the first time. This is a historic change. However, "Fortune" pointed out that while being happy with the progress of Chinese companies, a more pressing question is also at hand: how can Chinese companies transform from bigger to stronger, enhance global competitiveness, and become a world-class enterprise.
This is also a proposition that Country Garden is thinking about and has already put into action. As early as the beginning of 2019, Country Garden has upgraded its positioning as a "high-tech comprehensive enterprise that creates products for a better life for the world", expanding its development horizons to the world, and benchmarking the most competitive enterprises. For more than a year, Country Garden’s high-tech business format has continued to surprise the industry: Qianxi Robotic Catering Group is striving towards the world’s largest smart catering group integrating development, production, operation, and supply chain systems; Bozhilin Robotics Station At the forefront of China's intelligent construction, while promoting the high-quality development of the construction industry, it has also successfully established its own technical barriers; building a technology-based, platform-based, and international-oriented agriculture is the original intention of Country Garden to enter modern agriculture, and comprehensively improve agriculture The automation level of the industrial chain will become an important means for China to occupy the commanding heights of the future development of global agriculture.
A world-class real estate company bred in China's fertile soil
Country Garden's journey to the Fortune 500 began in July 2017. In this year, 10 Chinese companies made the list for the first time. Country Garden is the only new real estate company on the list, ranking 467th. It was also this year that Country Garden ranked first in the sales rankings of Chinese real estate companies for the first time. On the basis of the substantial increase in sales performance, in 2018, Country Garden's ranking climbed from 114 to 353. In 2019, Country Garden's ranking jumped 176 places to 177th.
From an individual point of view, in the past four years, Country Garden has been constantly breaking the ceiling of growth. According to statistics from third-party organizations, its full-caliber sales rose from 308.84 billion yuan in 2016 to about 771.53 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of 149.8%. The increase in profitability has been even more pronounced. Operating income increased by 217%, from 153.09 billion yuan to 485.91 billion yuan. The net profit increased from about 13.7 billion yuan to 61.2 billion yuan, an increase of about 348%.
Country Garden's outstanding achievements are rooted in the rapid development of China's economy. The rapidly expanding domestic demand market has created China's huge real estate industry and world-leading real estate companies. Some analysts believe that, compared with other Chinese real estate companies, Country Garden has a deeper understanding of China's urbanization strategy and a stronger confidence. Therefore, Country Garden can continue to penetrate into the third, fourth, and fifth tier cities when other real estate companies are hesitant to tap the potential housing needs of local residents, becoming the real estate company with the most extensive layout in China’s real estate industry, and finally ranking the highest in the global real estate industry. Bit.
Since the start of the business in the 1980s, Country Garden Chairman Yang Guoqiang has witnessed the economic prosperity and market changes in the 42 years of China's reform and opening up. He believes that Country Garden’s growth logic is embodied in the company’s choice of road. His strategy is to keep up with the trend of development with the times, “persist in deep cultivation of the three, four and five lines, and let the capable people go to every county and city in China for deep cultivation. Excellent stage and opportunity for people.” In his view, with the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, counties and cities with sufficient employment opportunities, high-quality schools and commercial resources, and good medical and transportation facilities, there are still considerable rural population inflows. Space, so there are huge market opportunities.
Plug in the wings of high-tech from bigger to stronger
Although the number of Chinese companies on the list and the continuous rise in rankings are welcome changes, how to narrow the distance with the world's leading companies is also a serious challenge. This includes the improvement of profitability, the construction of global value chains, and learning from the successful experience of globalization of Chinese companies such as Huawei to go global and become stronger and enhance global competitiveness on the basis of already larger ones.
According to Fortune, the weaknesses of Chinese companies reflect the problems of industrial structure. Wang Youming, director of the Institute for Developing Countries of the China Institute of International Studies, said that although China’s total GDP ranks second in the world, its constituent elements are still dominated by processing, manufacturing, and agriculture. High-end technology and modern service industries are not dominant. It is still at the lower end of the global industrial chain.
Regarding science and technology as a way to achieve innovation and create a great cause is Country Garden's answer. Although he grew up in a small town in Guangdong Province, China, the founder of Country Garden has an international vision, looking forward to using technology to create a better life for people all over the world and build a century-old enterprise. In accordance with its new positioning as a “high-tech comprehensive enterprise”, Country Garden has developed high-tech business segments such as robotics and modern agriculture based on its main real estate business.
With the strong support of the main business, these new businesses quickly landed and thrived. For example, the Qianxi Robotic Restaurant Group, established in May 2019, is committed to applying more advanced technology and cultural propositions to diversified catering services and building a world-leading robotic restaurant chain brand. As of June 2020, Country Garden has submitted more than 500 patent applications and independently developed more than 80 kinds of robotic equipment and software systems, of which 61 have been put into use, covering multiple formats such as hot pot, Chinese food, fast food, and claypot rice. The robot restaurant under Qianxi Group has officially opened 6 physical stores, including a robot restaurant complex with the most advanced technology and the most complete business in the world.
Founded in 2018, Bozhilin Robotics Company and Country Garden Agricultural Holdings Co., Ltd. have also achieved remarkable results in their respective fields. Among them, Guangdong Bozhilin Robot Co., Ltd. brings together more than 3,400 outstanding domestic and foreign R&D talents to conduct R&D, production and application of construction robots and related intelligent construction equipment, assembly, etc. There are currently more than 50 construction robots under development, of which A total of 36 models have been put into site test applications, and more than 10 models have entered the stage of commercialization, with considerable economic benefits. Country Garden Agricultural Holdings Co., Ltd. is positioned as an integrator of industry resources, an enhancer of industrial structure, and a service provider of modern agriculture. It strives to build a technology-based, platform-based, and international agriculture. It has also formed R&D services, smart seed industry, and modern agriculture. Five core business sectors, including science and technology parks, large overseas agriculture, and community fresh food stores.
Private enterprises are the mainstay of innovation. Including Country Garden, private enterprises carrying high-tech genes are becoming an important force in the transformation and upgrading of China's industrial structure. In May of this year, Qianxi Group was awarded the country’s first CR certificate for system-integrated catering robots. It also released the first technical specifications in the field of domestic food robots with the National Robot Inspection and Evaluation Center and other units, establishing the company’s smart catering in China and even the world. Leadership in the field.
It can be seen that while helping China's smart manufacturing and China's creation, Country Garden has also opened up a high-tech development path from bigger to stronger. Some experts believe that most of the value of a technology company will be reflected in the next 10-15 years. It is believed that Country Garden’s global competitiveness and the improvement of its international rankings will have much room for imagination.