20 Philippines firms among Asia’s most powerful

MANILA, Philippines - SM Prime and Universal Robina led 20 of the country’s biggest companies in a list of the most powerful firms in the region.

The Nikkei Asian Review recently released its annual “Asia300,” a compilation of the most powerful and valuable listed companies in Asia.

“We compiled the ranking by analyzing the 327 companies on that list, taking into account a mix of four factors: growth, profitability, efficiency and financial soundness,” Nikkei Asian Review said.

In the top 30 are the Sy family’s SM Prime, the Philippines’ biggest real estate company, which climbed to the 23rd spot from 25th; followed in the 26th spot by Universal Robina Corp., the food and beverage company of the Gokongwei family.

Nikkei recognized Universal Robina for being the market leader in snacks, candies, chocolates, canned beans and ready-to-drink tea in the Philippines and the second leading in terms of cup noodles and instant coffee.

Other Philippine companies that made it to the list are BDO Unibank Inc., Cebu Air Inc., Metro Pacific Investments Corp., PLDT Inc., Aboitiz Power Corp., Alliance Global Group Inc., Ayala Corp., Ayala Land Inc., DMCI Holdings Inc., GT Capital Holdings Inc., International Container Terminal Services Inc., JG Summit Holdings Inc., Jollibee Foods Corp., LT Group Inc., Manila Electric Co., San Miguel Corp. and SM Investments Corp.

In the top spot is Taiwan’s Largan Precision, the world’s leading maker of lenses for smartphone cameras.

“Two other Taiwanese companies cracked the top 10, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest semiconductor foundry, grabbing the No. 5 spot, and Eclat Textile, which has about 9,000 employees, placing seventh,” it said.

Vietnam Dairy Products (Vinamilk), the country’s largest food processor, meanwhile, took the eighth spot.

“Rounding out the top 10 were Chinese internet giants Alibaba Group Holding (No. 6) and Tencent Holdings (No. 9), and state-owned airport operator Airports of Thailand (No. 10),” Nikkei said.

The Asia300 is Nikkei’s exclusive list of the 327 biggest and fastest-growing companies from 11 economies across the continent, excluding Japan. Selections are based on market capitalization, with growth potential and geographic balance also factored in. Nikkei also publishes a series of stock indexes based on the Asia300. The main Nikkei Asia300 Index comprises 316 companies from the list as of March 2017.