2020 was a phenomenal year for the markets with some big changes in the Global Top 100 companies by market capitalization. Tesla for instance saw its market capitalization increase by 565% from the levels seen in March 2020. In this blog we’ll look at the global top 100 companies by market capitalization as of Mar-2021 and who their auditors are. The top-100 companies were identified based on the survey performed by PwC. This blog provides a listing of the top 100 companies along with their auditors.

Industry Sectors

Of the top 100 companies, 20 of them are in the Technology sector, 17 of them in the Consumer Discretionary sector, and 16 of them in the Healthcare sector. No surprises that Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, and Tencent occupy spots within the top 10 companies. NextEra Energy is the only utility company within the top 100 list. See below for a detailed breakdown of companies by sector:

Company Location

Of the top 100 companies, 59 of them are located in the United States while 11 of them are located in the People’s Republic of China. Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, and UK have 3 companies each. See below for a detailed breakdown of companies by country:

Auditors

Looking at the top 100 Companies, PwC leads in the number of audit clients followed by EY. PwC audits 37 companies while EY audits 26. Deloitte and KPMG audits 16 companies each. PwC received a total audit fee of $1.03 billion from these 37 companies while EY received an audit fee income of $861 million. The break-down of the auditors for these 100 companies along with their audit fees are as follows:

The public fillings of Saudi Aramco does not disclose how much they paid to PwC, their auditors. Hence the above numbers for PwC does not include the fees for the Aramco audit which is expected to be a very substantial amount. Samsung Electronics and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China switched to Deloitte in FY’20. However, for the purposes of the above chart, they are considered under their previous auditors.

Biggest Companies in the World

Apple is the biggest company in the world in terms of market capitalization with a value of $2.05 trillion followed by Saudi Aramco with a market value of $1.92 trillion (as of Mar’21). Microsoft and Amazon occupy the third and fourth spot with a market value of $1.78 trillion and $1.56 trillion respectively.

Do read our other blogs on the top 500 companies in the US and their auditors.