Infosys, WIPRO, ICICI Bank in Forbes list of fabulous firms

[inline:1]Washington--Software giants Infosys Technologies, WIPRO and private bank ICICI are the three Indian companies whose names are figuring in the recently released list of top 50 fabulous Asian firms compiled by Forbes Magazine.

Companies with at least five billion dollars in revenue or market value were considered for the list and some 500 made the grade and met the magazine's definition of "big."

Out of them, 50 were chosen on the basis of the best aggregate score for long-term profitability, sales and earnings growth as well as projected earnings and stock price gains.

Infosys Technologies, according to Forbes, has a market value of 14.7 billion dollars and its sales are put at 1.6 billion dollars. The corresponding figures for WIPRO are 11.7 billion dollars and 1.9 billion dollars.

But, ICICI Bank with market value of 8.1 billion dollars has sales worth 3.9 billion dollars. But none of the three firms could find a place among the top 10.

Among the top five are two Chinese companies and one each from Japan, Australia and South Korea.

The first place goes to Toyota Motors of Japan which has a market value of 146.2 billion dollars and sales worth 173.1 billion dollars.

China's petroleum company Petro China with market value of 143.9 billion dollars and sales of 46.9 billion dollars finds the second place followed by Australian materials outfit BHP-Billion with market cap of 93.3 billion dollars and sales worth 29.6 billion dollars.

China Mobile, Hong Kong-based telecommunications company, is placed fourth with market value of 85.3 billion dollars and sales amounting to 23.3 billion dollars.

At the fifth place is Samsung Electronics of South Korea with market cap of 77 billion dollars and sales worth 79.2 billion dollars.

Thirteen Japanese companies,highest from a single country, are among the top 50, followed by ten from Australia, seven from China, eight each from South Korea and Taiwan and one from Thailand. But among the seven Chinese companies, six are Hong Kong-based.