Infographic: The Most Profitable Companies In The World

According to the Fortune Global 500 published today, Saudi Aramco was still the world's most profitable company in 2019. But looking at the company's Q2 results - also released today - those days might be over as quickly as they started.

By preparing to be publicly listed, Saudi state oil company Saudi Aramco disclosed its profits for the first time. At $111.1 billion for the year 2018, they overshot earnings of other companies by a large margin. After finally going public in late 2019, the company put that year's profits at $88.2 billion, still the highest in the world. Because of the oil price decline and quarrels within OPEC, the company is now on track to earn less than $50 billion this year.

This would put the oil giant behind investment firm Berkshire Hathaway and Apple on the list of the most profitable companies in the world. Both have so far grown their profits in 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Since profits are known only for publicly listed companies or those planning to become listed on a stock exchange, the earnings of a large number of companies around the world, especially state companies, remain unknown and are not included on the list.