As many as 33 Indian companies have entered the Forbes listing of 2000 largest public companies globally. ONGC is the highest ranked Indian company with a global rank of 256, followed by Reliance Industries at 298. Banks dominate the Indian entries in the listing, with as many as 12 banks finding a place. Among major business groups, Tatas lead with three representations. There were 30 Indian companies in last year's ranking.

The difference between India and China is not so obvious in this listing. There are 36 companies in the list which are based in either mainland China or Hong Kong. The lead over India is limited to just three, even though the Chinese economy is much larger, which reflects the higher importance of large public companies in the Indian economy.

The Forbes list is based on a composite ranking which considers sales revenues, profits, assets and market value. The more well known Fortune 500 list of largest companies, by rival business magazine Fortune, considers only sales revenues.

The 2000 companies in the Forbes listing netted $1.7 trillion in profits on combined sales revenues of $24 trillion last year. Their total assets stood at $88 trillion, had a combined market value of $31 trillion and employed 68 million people worldwide.