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The list of Fortune 500 businesses in the Arab region has been released for the first time, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE taking the lead in terms of aggregate revenues.
The list, published on Tuesday by Fortune Arabia, a subsidiary of Majarra and licensed by Fortune Global, ranked oil giant Saudi Aramco as the top company with its 2022 revenue reaching more than $603.7 billion, with Kuwait Petroleum Corporation coming in second with approximately $106.6 billion. Sonatrach Spa with $60 billion came in third, followed by QatarEnergy ($51.9 billion), and OQ SAOC ($39.1 billion).
The UAE’s Emirates Group came sixth on the list with a revenue of $32.6 billion. Rounding up the top 10 were Qatar Airways ($20.8 billion), National Bank of Egypt ($20 billion), Saudi Electric Company ($19.2 billion) and QNB Group ($18.5 billion).
The list showed that Saudi Arabia is home to 153 large corporations that generated $813.33 billion in 2022, the highest in the region, followed by the UAE with 87 Fortune 500 companies, generating a total of $254.87 billion.
Part of the global Fortune 500 lists that have been published by the magazine in the US since 1955, the list ranks Arab companies based on reported and verified revenues, which reached a total of approximately $1.6 trillion dollars.
It includes the top 500 Arab companies from 22 Arab states, with private companies not listed on the stock markets making up 9% of the list.
“Being part of the Fortune 500 list is significant, as it carries specific criteria that holds great importance for shareholders, investors and analysts, and offers substantial opportunities for the companies included in its classification,” said Fortune Arabia’s Editor-in-Chief Hamoud Almahmoud in a statement.
According to Fortune Arabia, the UAE recorded the largest proportion of the top 100 profitable businesses on the list.
In terms of payroll size, the country took the lead with large corporations in the country employing 681,390 workers, accounting for 17.4% of the businesses included in the list. The number surpassed the workforce size in Saudi Arabia, which recorded 548,625 employees.
The UAE is also home to the second-highest number of Fortune 500 businesses after Saudi Arabia, which accounted for a third or 153 out of the 500 companies.
UAE businesses have a significant number of women in top positions, accounting for 20% of the female leadership on the list. Female leaders from Morocco represented 20%, followed by Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti female bosses, each comprising 6.7%.
In terms of net earnings, UAE businesses landed the third spot with $49.29 billion, accounting for 14.36% of the 500 companies’ total income of $343.23 billion. Saudi Arabia topped the list in terms of net income at $198.93 billion, followed by Qatar with $54.35 billion.
(Reporting by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Bindu Rai)
