Hurun India, in collaboration with Axis Bank, has come out with the third edition of the Hurun India 500, which is a tally of the country’s 500 most aspirational and successful companies.
This year, the list — titled Burgundy Private Hurun India 500 (Burgundy Private is Axis Bank’s private banking business) — features companies with a minimum value of Rs 6,700 crore, up by 13% from Rs 5,947 crore last year. To subscribe please click tau.id/2iy6f and access our live channel.
Twenty Indian companies, up eight from last year, are among the 500 most-valuable ones in the world, a report released on Friday showed. With a valuation of $202 billion, Reliance Industries was the most valuable Indian company on the list.
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Globally, it was the 34th biggest company. Apple, worth $2.4 trillion, was the most valuable company, followed by Microsoft, with a value of $1.8 trillion. Previously, the top 500 companies of the world lost $11.1 trillion of their value.
As per Hurun’s data, these companies employ 1.3% of India’s organised workforce. Hurun described the employment impact of these companies as significant, supporting the livelihoods of 7 million Indians — an average of 15,211 employees per company.
The list includes very old as well as very new companies — in Hurun India’s own words, “spanning from the venerable 235-year-old EID-Parry to startups founded as recently as 2021”.
61 new companies made their debut on this year’s list. Industrial products sector led with 16 new entrants, followed by financial services with 10. The presence of women on the boards of 437 of these companies was a big highlight.
Startups in the list cumulatively lost Rs 4 lakh crore led by Byjus, Dealshare, and Pharmeasy. Not all was gloomy for Indian startups during the year, though. The cumulative value of the 6 unicorns listed on Indian exchanges gained Rs 62,837 crore — a marked improvement compared to the valuation loss of Rs 1,66,013 crore in 2022.
According to Hurun, list reflects the multifaceted nature of India’s economy as the companies are spread across a large number of sectors — from finance and healthcare to consumer goods, IT, and automotive, with leading companies like HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, ITC, and Tata Motors — “exemplifying the breadth and depth of India’s industrial prowess”.
