I keep hearing people compare the size of large companies to the size
of foreign countries.  I assume they are comparing market cap to
countries' GDP.  (This is a stock vs flow comparison, so not really
correct, but illuminating nonetheless.)  A better comparison would be
net income vs GDP.  Revenue vs GDP would be a middle ground
comparison.

In any case, has anyone seen any good numbers on this that make sense
to present - eg, the top 50 companies have revenues that exceed the
GDP of Italy?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 30 Jul 2004 12:38 PDT

Is this the type of thing your're looking for?


http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/tables/comp971.htm


The numbers are from 1997, so are getting pretty dated.  But if it's
what you're after, I'll see if I can locate an updated version as an
answer to your question.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by dbgg-ga on 30 Jul 2004 12:44 PDT

yes - that is not bad.  I would like more updated data, and I would
like to be able to say something sensical along the lines of:

"The world's top X companies are larger than the world's XXXXX countries."

Thanks for the rapid response.  I have increased the fee to 10$ if you
can help me answer this - I really need the text, not just the
numbers.  Thanks.