Huawei Falls Out of Global Top 100 Rankings Under Direct Impact of US Sanctions

Huawei has fallen outside the top 100 in the ranking of the 500 largest global companies announced by the American economic magazine Fortune. This is interpreted as an impact on its overall business areas, including a sharp decline in sales following U.S. sanctions.

According to Fortune's "2022 Global 500" released on the 2nd, China's Huawei dropped 15 places from the previous year to rank 111th. Huawei had made significant progress by ranking 44th in this ranking until 2020, but showed a sluggish trend, falling to 96th in 2021.

Fortune annually selects the top 500 companies worldwide based on the previous year's sales figures from the financial statements of major companies. In this ranking, the U.S. retailer Walmart took first place, maintaining the top spot for 10 consecutive years. Saudi Aramco ranked second, and China's power company State Grid held third place. They were followed by the U.S. Amazon (4th), and China's China Petroleum and Sinopec Group.

Huawei's drop in ranking signifies that its performance improvement has been hindered by the sluggishness of its smartphone business. Huawei's sales last year were approximately $95.489 billion (about 124.04 trillion KRW). In March, Huawei rotating chairman Xu Zhijun clearly stated in the financial report announcement that "strict external environment and non-market factors are affecting the company's operations," effectively confirming that the company was hit by U.S. sanctions.

China's representative big tech company JD.com fell from 46th to 52nd, and Alibaba dropped from 55th to 68th. Xiaomi, which was previously ranked 266th, fell back 94 places to 360th.

Other Chinese companies generally showed a sluggish trend. Among the top-tier companies were Hon Hai Precision (27th), China Mobile (62nd), China Telecom (132nd), and Tencent (147th).

China's leading delivery company Meituan appeared on the list for the first time at 467th. Meituan's sales last year were 220 billion yuan (about 39.6792 trillion KRW), a sharp increase of 22.8% compared to the previous year. Although it posted an operating loss of 5.82 billion yuan, this was a 74.8% decrease from the previous year. In March this year, it closed its own taxi business and is currently adjusting its operations by starting delivery services in Hong Kong.

China's white goods manufacturers have also lost momentum. Haier recorded sales of 243.5 billion yuan last year, up 7.22% from the previous year, but its ranking in Fortune's company list fell 14 places to 419th. South Korea's Samsung Electronics (18th → 25th) and LG Electronics (187th → 204th), as well as Japan's Sony (116th → 140th) and Panasonic (193rd → 218th), also saw their rankings decline respectively.