Coal India, which had the largest Indian IPO of about $3 billion last year replaced Reliance Industries as the company with the largest market capitalization today.
I read a few very excitable articles about how great this news was, and how amazing it is that a company that listed less than a year ago has now become the most valuable company, and a few other things like that.
While I don’t share that enthusiasm; I was curious to see a good list of big Indian companies, and specifically – the top Indian companies measured by market capitalization.
The best link I found was on Wiki, but that seemed a little dated, so I have created one of my own.
I used the companies from Wiki, then looked to see if there were any companies in the Sensex or NSE Nifty that weren’t part of it, and came up with a list that seemed like it would contain the biggest Indian companies.
Then I went to Google Finance and got the market capitalization data from there. Due to the methodology, there might be some errors, but as best as I could collect – here is a list of the top 35 Indian companies by market capitalization on 17th August 2011.
| S.No. | Company |
Market Capitalization in Rs. Billion |
In Millions USD at 1 USD = Rs. 45 |
| 1 | Coal India |
2,510.00 |
55,777.78 |
| 2 | Reliance Industries |
2,470.00 |
54,888.89 |
| 3 | ONGC |
2,370.00 |
52,666.67 |
| 4 | TCS |
1,970.00 |
43,777.78 |
| 5 | ITC |
1,580.00 |
35,111.11 |
| 6 | Bharti Airtel |
1,510.00 |
33,555.56 |
| 7 | NTPC |
1,450.00 |
32,222.22 |
| 8 | Infosys |
1,400.00 |
31,111.11 |
| 9 | State Bank of India |
1,380.00 |
30,666.67 |
| 10 | ICICI Bank |
1,050.00 |
23,333.33 |
| 11 | L&T |
1,000.00 |
22,222.22 |
| 12 | HDFC |
911.52 |
20,256.00 |
| 13 | NMDC |
875.00 |
19,444.44 |
| 14 | BHEL |
870.00 |
19,333.33 |
| 15 | Wipro |
844.00 |
18,755.56 |
| 16 | Indian Oil |
763.00 |
16,955.56 |
| 17 | GAIL |
556.00 |
12,355.56 |
| 18 | Sun Pharmaceuticals |
501.00 |
11,133.33 |
| 19 | TATA Motors |
493.00 |
10,955.56 |
| 20 | Jindal Steel and Power |
482.00 |
10,711.11 |
| 21 | Axis Bank |
481.00 |
10,688.89 |
| 22 | Power Grid Corporation |
477.00 |
10,600.00 |
| 23 | Mahindra and Mahindra |
442.00 |
9,822.22 |
| 24 | SAIL |
440.00 |
9,777.78 |
| 25 | Tata Steel |
426.00 |
9,466.67 |
| 26 | Punjab National Bank |
331.00 |
7,355.56 |
| 27 | Oil India |
317.00 |
7,044.44 |
| 28 | NHPC |
304.00 |
6,755.56 |
| 29 | DLF |
301.00 |
6,688.89 |
| 30 | HCL Techonologies |
289.00 |
6,422.22 |
| 31 | Hindalco |
273.00 |
6,066.67 |
| 32 | Tata Power |
255.00 |
5,666.67 |
| 33 | HDFC Bank |
204.9 |
4533.33 |
| 34 | Grasim |
194.00 |
4,311.11 |
| 35 | Power Finance Corporation |
183.00 |
4,066.67 |
The interesting thing about this list is how quickly it thins out – there just seem to be 20 odd companies that are worth $20 billion or more. I thought there will be more than that, and a slightly dated list from Wiki of top Chinese companies show that they have about 40 such companies. Also, the biggest Chinese company – PetroChina is about $200 billion, which is about as much as the top 4 Indian companies.
I will update this list from time to time, and try to keep the data fresh, and if you see any errors in it then please leave a comment and I’ll correct it.
Update: There was an error in the values of HDFC and HDFC Bank which has been corrected now. Thank you Baskar.
hey pls update it…..coal india has again cum dwn…reliance is no.1…n may b sum more co.s hv change in their position…
Pls check the market cap of HDFC Bank and HDFC Limited …they seem to be wrong
May be the stock split has not been taken into consideration …may be with this the number of companies with market cap of $ 20bn will go up…
Baskar – thanks for pointing that out – there was an error where I had used the same values for HDFC bank for HDFC also. I’m sorry about that, and thank you for pointing that out.
Market capitalisation is the toatal value of outstanding shares of a company but manytimes people get confused b/w CAPITALISATION & MARKET CAPITALISATION of a company.
But the distinctive fact about CAPITALISATION of a company is that it is a term that refers to the sum total of a company’s shareholders’ equity plus long-term debt like debentures and long-term bonds.
Appreciate your efforts in compiling the list Manshu. Can market capitalization be taken as a lead to invest in these companies’ shares?
Only to a limited extent – if you were looking for a big diversified industrial you can look at something like this, or if you wanted to get into the banking sector and wanted safe stocks, you could look at getting some of the bigger banks.
So, I don’t think it will serve as much of a lead but can be used with a combination of other factors depending on what you were trying to do.
Thanks Manshu.
Thanks for the comment Radhika – your comment gave me an idea to write a post about what ideas one can use to lead them to good stocks and good companies, and I will write it sometimes this week. Thanks!