Oil majors retain top positions on Fortune's 500 list

A bus at an oil station of Sinopec in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, April 25, 2016. [Photo/IC]

Oil majors Sinopec and PetoChina retain their positions as the top Chinese companies despite the slump in prices in 2015, according to 2016 Fortune China 500 list issued by Fortune magazine Wednesday.

Operating revenue of Sinopec reached 2.02 trillion yuan ($329 billion) in 2015, down 28.6 percent, and that of PetroChina stood at 1.73 trillion yuan, down 24.4 percent.

China State Construction Engineering Corporation Ltd, the country's largest construction conglomerate, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China took the third and fourth places in the ranking.

Telecom carrier China Mobile Ltd dropped to the sixth place, overtaken by automobile maker SAIC Motor Corp. Some internet companies such as LeEco Holdings Co and travel agency Ctrip joined the list for the first time.

Operating revenues of the 500 companies amounted to 30.77 trillion yuan in 2015, up 1.2 percent from the previous year. Net profits totaled 2.74 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.5 percent year on year, according to the magazine. The rates of growth in operating revenue and net profits slowed down, compared with 5 percent and 6 percent rises in 2014. The threshold for this year's ranking is 9.608 billion yuan in operating revenue.

It is worth noting that home appliance manufacturer Midea Group Co became the top acquirer of overseas assets, while Tencent Holdings Ltd was the first in the BAT companies (Baidu Inc, Alibababa Group Holdings Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd) to have its operating revenue surpass 100 billion yuan. Among all internet companies, Netease Inc rose the fastest in the ranking.

China Hongqiao Group was one of the most profitable aluminum companies in the world, while Trina Solar Ltd served as the world's largest PV module supplier.