Nestlé edges out Royal Dutch Shell to move into 15th position worldwide – up three places with a stock market value of $252 billion (CHF250 billion), the annual report by the services company Ernst&Young found.
Two Swiss pharmaceutical giants, Roche and Novartis, also feature in the top 100, in positions 24 and 31 respectively, both of them improving their global standing.
Two insurance companies – Chubb and Zurich Insurance Group – as well as the commodity and mining firm Glencore, the leading UBS bank and the engineering company ABB are listed among the top 300.
The most expensive company in the world is the United States technology firm, Microsoft, which relegated Apple to second place ahead of Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
The most valuable non-American firms are Chinese internet companies Tencent and Alibaba in positions six and nine respectively.
Switzerland takes fourth place in the country ranking behind the US, China/Hong Kong and Britain.
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.