For the first time, Germany is no longer among the 100 most valuable listed companies in the world.

This emerges from an evaluation by the consulting company EY.

A year ago, SAP and Siemens were still among the top 100.

In 2008 there were still eight German companies.

Daniel Mohr

Editor in Business.

  • Follow I follow

"On the stock exchanges, it is not past successes that count, but future prospects," says Henrik Ahlers, CEO of EY.

"And as far as the future prospects are concerned, we have to admit, self-critically, that we have so far failed to prove that Germany will play a decisive role in shaping the global economy of the future and also has an important say in the digital economy of tomorrow." Ahlers adds: "We are experiencing fundamental upheavals – with the rules currently being made by American and Asian IT companies and the impression created that Europe is only watching from the sidelines.”

Among the 100 most valuable companies are 62 companies from the USA.

The number of Chinese companies has increased from 10 to 15 in 2022.

All European countries together also have 15 companies.

France is in the lead here with five world-class companies, Great Britain has four and Switzerland three.

Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark each have one company to complete the list of European companies in the top 100. European influence has drastically reduced in recent years.

In 2007, Europe was still the leading world region on the stock exchanges.

At that time, 46 of the 100 largest companies were from Europe, 32 from the USA and 17 from Asia.

"Uniform capital market rules in Europe would be an important step"

The stock exchange ranking thus also reflects the declining economic and political influence of Europe.

And it's not a good future prospect.

Stock market valuations reflect the confidence of investors and show who they entrust their money to.

As a result, these companies can raise a lot of capital cheaply and for future investments on the stock exchanges.

"Especially in the USA, the financing situation is much better, not least for young companies," says Ahlers.

“The capital market in Europe remains highly fragmented, while in the US there is a broader range of cheap and flexible sources of financing.

Uniform capital market rules in Europe would be an important step.”

The ten largest companies in the world are still dominated by American tech companies, even if they lost a significant lead in 2022.

Apple is the only company with a market value of just over two trillion dollars, a year ago it was 2.9 trillion dollars.

The oil company Saudi Aramco was able to move up to second place thanks to higher oil prices and is the only non-American company in the top ten.

Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon in third, fourth and fifth place fell sharply in value.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway was even able to increase its value in a difficult year on the stock market and improves to sixth place.

Oil company Exxon Mobil biggest winner

The American oil company Exxon Mobil made the biggest jump from 259 billion dollars to 454 billion dollars, which is enough for ninth place after previously 38th place in the once most valuable company in the world.

The biggest losers of the year are the Facebook group Meta, which falls from 7th to 26th place and has lost around 600 of its 900 billion dollar market value and the electric car group Tesla, which under the leadership of Elon Musk fell from 6th to 20th place and from just under 1st place $.1 trillion stock market value has fallen to $344 billion.

The most valuable European company is the French luxury group LVMH at 15th place, ahead of the Swiss food company Nestlé at 23rd place and the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk at 27th place. In Germany, SAP maintains the top position but has fallen from 80th to 106th place.

Siemens also fell from 94th to 116th place. Bright spots are Deutsche Telekom, which improved from 176th to 130th and Porsche as a newcomer to 145th place (4th place in Germany).

If you look at the 300 most valuable companies in the world, Germany is represented by eleven companies (previous year: 13), America comes in at 151 and China at 33.