30 Most Profitable Companies to Watch

After an unprecedented year of business ups and downs, these are the 30 most profitable companies that landed on top.

30 Most Profitable Companies in the World

After an unprecedented year for businesses and the economy, these are the 30 most profitable companies that landed on top.

Many are revealing plans to cut costs, release innovative products and services, and incorporate financial strategies to secure growth in the upcoming fiscal year. So, which ones will you be watching?

30. UnitedHealth Group

Industry: Diversified Healthcare

Profit: $13.84 billion

Profit change: +15.5%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 15

Bottom line: Providing healthcare coverage, software and data consultancy services, UnitedHealth Group operates UnitedHealthcare, OptumHealth, OptumInight and OptumRx, offering healthcare coverage to large corporations, small businesses, public sector, national employers and individuals. Operating out of the United States, UnitedHealth was founded in 1977.

Currently the largest health insurance company in the United States, UnitedHealth is projected to continue to grow in 2021. CEO David Wichmann said of the company’s 2021 strategy, “[We] will continue to push a move to value-based medical care models while escalating the use of technology to make sure patients get care that they need when they need it … patients will get more digital coaching along with advancements in telehealth.”

* All company data comes from the Fortune Global 500 list for 2020.

29. AT&T

Industry: Telecommunications

Profit: $13.90 billion

Profit change: -28.2%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 22

Bottom line:A holding company for telecommunications and technology services, AT&T is one of the oldest companies on our list, originally founded in 1880 as Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. For nearly 100 years, AT&T was considered one of the largest corporations in the world across the entire market, not only telecommunications.

In its prime, AT&T was as influential as Exxon Mobil or Apple are in modern day, and it still remains the largest telecommunications company in the world. In February 2021, AT&T noted a surge in post-paid wireless phone additions for the fourth quarter of 2020. These numbers were well over 60 percent higher than previously projected estimates.

28. Fannie Mae

Industry: Financial Services

Profit: $14.16 billion

Profit change: -11.3%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 53

Bottom line:Unlike other companies on this list, Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise that was founded during the Great Depression as a part of the New Deal in order to stimulate the housing market. Currently, Fannie Mae is one of the two largest purchasers of mortgages on the secondary market. The largest backer of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, this is a marked improvement since the company was on the brink back in 2008.

In 2021, in response to the global pandemic, Fannie Mae is granting extensions of the forbearance plant up to 3 months for a potential total of 12 months. Additionally, the company announced it will extend the suspension of foreclosure-related activities through June 30, 2021.

27. Exxon Mobil Corporation

Industry: Integrated Oil

Profit: $14.34 billion

Profit change: -31.2%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 11

Bottom line: Founded in 1882, Exxon Mobil is a leader in the oil and gas industry. With a long history as a frontrunner in both chemical and petroleum manufacturing, the company boasts strengths in its employees, ingenuity and long-term perspective.

In February 2021, the company reported an expectation for capital expenditures to decline up to 25 percent from 2020. The company plans to focus on products with lower break-even costs since the pandemic is causing an “uncertain price environment.”

26. Walmart

Industry: Retail

Profit: $14.88 billion

Profit change: +123.1%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 1

Bottom line:The only retail and wholesale business making the list of the world’s most profitable companies, Walmart operates both Walmart US and Walmart International as well as Sam’s Club. The company’s revenue was up for 2020 allowing it to retain its spot at No. 1 over Amazon. Walmart reports that this was driven by higher individual spending per customer visit.

In February 2021, Walmart announced it will increase its employee wages to average over $15/hour for over 425,000 workers. While the company’s minimum wage will remain at $11/hour, this new development keeps them in the running with their two biggest competitors, Amazon and Target who both pay their employers a minimum of $15 per hour.

25. Johnson & Johnson

Industry: Holding

Profit: $15.12 billion

Profit change: -1.2%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 104

Bottom line: A holding company operating in research and development, manufacturing and sales of healthcare products, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, Johnson & Johnson was founded in 1886 in New Jersey. Ranking No. 1 in culture over its competitors such as Pfizer and Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson employs well over 130,000 diverse employees.

After beating Q4 estimates in 2020 and trading higher in 2021, medical device sales continue to steadily grow. The company’s forecast will be continued growth as their one-shot vaccination was approved by the FDA in February 2021 for emergency use for those 18 years and older.

24. Volkswagen

Industry: Automobile Manufacturing

Profit: $15.54 billion

Profit change: +8.5%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 7

Bottom line: One of the world’s leaders in vehicle manufacturing, Volkswagen delivered over 9 million vehicles in 2020. Founded in 1937, Volkswagen has a sorted history in Germany. But by mid-2015, Volkswagen overcame competitor Toyota as the world’s largest car manufacturer by volume. However, an EPA public relations nightmare shortly followed, costing Volkswagen over $4 billion, and several of its employees were given criminal charges.

In March 2021, the company announced they will reveal a sleek, new modern design for their Microbus in 2022 and have plans for an automated taxi service to follow.

23. Royal Dutch Shell

Industry: Oil & Gas

Profit: $15.84 billion

Profit change: -32.3%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 5

Bottom line: A major world producer of oil and natural gas, Royal Dutch Shell was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in The Netherlands. A British-Dutch company that is incorporated in the United Kingdom, Shell is a public limited company.

After posting a loss of over 30 percent in 2020, Shell outlined details in early 2021 to achieve a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. This goal would include its operations emissions as well as the company’s energy products. “Our accelerated strategy will drive down carbon emissions and will deliver value for our shareholders, our customers and wider society,” said Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden.

22. Pfizer

Industry: Pharmaceutical

Profit: $16.27 billion

Profit change: +45.9%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 215

Bottom line: Founded in 1849, Pfizer is headquartered in New York but has operations across the globe. Researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing pharmaceuticals such as prescription and over-the-counter medicines has made Pfizer a household name with well-recognized medications like Robitussin, Advil and Viagra.

In 2020, Pfizer became one of the leading companies for the development of the COVID-19 two-shot vaccine. For this and other reasons, Pfizer forecasts continued growth to even surpass 2020’s nearly 46 percent increase.

21. Samsung Electronics

Industry: Conglomerate-Electronics, Semiconductors and Home Appliance

Profit: $18.45 billion

Profit change: -53.7%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 19

Bottom line: Specializing in producing a wide range of electronics, home appliances, digital media devices, memory chips and semiconductors, Samsung was founded in 1938 in South Korea and now produces nearly one-fifth of the country’s total exports.

In more recent years, Samsung has risen to one of the world’s most recognizable smartphone brands. The Samsung Galaxy phone is one of the leading competitors of Apple’s iPhone. Samsung has also maintained the top spot in TV sales since 2006, even after posting a noticeable profit loss for the year of 2020.

20. Facebook

Industry: Social Media Advertising

Profit: $18.49 billion

Profit change: -16.4%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 144

Bottom line: One of the best known social networking companies in the world, Facebook was founded in 2004 and is located in California. Operating across personal computers and mobile devices including phones and tablets, Facebook has become an innovator in the way people connect.

Following a difficult election year and the high-stress of a pandemic, Facebook announced in February 2021 that it will stop news sharing in Australia after the company reported being wrongfully accused of stealing original journalism for its own benefit. Fewer than one post in every 25 in your News Feed will contain a link to a news story, and many users say they would like to see even less news and political content.

19. Gazprom

Industry: Oil & Gas

Profit: $18.59 billion

Profit change: -19.9%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 55

Bottom line: With a focus on geological exploration, production, transportation, storage, processing and sales of oil and gas, as well as the generation and marketing of heat and electric power, Gazprom is a global energy company founded in Russia in 1989.

Posting numbers over 45 percent higher than last year for January 2021, the company reports that its European gas sales buoyed its overall profits as the demands soared in the beginning of 2021.

18. Toyota Motor

Industry: Automotive

Profit: $19.1 billion

Profit change: +12.4%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 10

Bottom line: As a world leader in manufacturing and selling automobiles and parts, Toyota was founded in 1937 and is headquartered in Toyota City, Japan. Toyota automotive designers are now piloting two initiatives, including intelligent transportation systems to more effectively route traffic and reduce accidents as well as in-vehicle mobile terminals to increase the types of information people riding in their vehicles can access while on the road.

Toyota also recently developed a product that packages a fuel cell system into a compact module, which it plans to sell starting in spring 2021.

17. Verizon Communications

Industry: Communication Technology

Profit: $19.27 billion

Profit change: +24.1%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 44

Bottom line: One of the world’s leading communication technology companies, Verizon was founded in 2000 and is still providing consumers with high-quality technology, information, communication, and entertainment products and services.

After posting nearly a 25 percent profit increase in 2020, Verizon’s CEO is focused on expanding its 5G coverage as people are still sheltering in place and need to feel connected now for business, education and personal pursuits. Vestberg said Verizon plans to “almost double” the amount of 5G availability in the U.S. during 2021.

16. Citigroup

Industry: Financial Services Holdings

Profit: $19.40 billion

Profit change: +7.5%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 70

Bottom line: A multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York, Citigroup has faced many financial challenges in the last decade, including selling off its brokerage segment to Morgan Stanley, a competitor of Citigroup, in 2009. Boasting over 200 million consumer accounts in over 150 countries across the globe, Citi was known as the world’s largest banking and financial services brand before its re-brand.

Posting a profit gain in 2020, even in the face of job loss and reduced spending, Citigroup is focusing its growth efforts on refreshing its global capabilities strategies this year. CEO Jane Fraser said management is currently, "assessing which businesses can attain leading market positions in a much more digitized world."

15. Wells Fargo

Industry: Financial Services

Profit: $21.05 billion

Profit change: -12.7%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 69

Bottom line: As one of the earliest diversified financial services company, Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in California. Offering investment, banking, mortgage, and financial products and services to both businesses and individual consumers, Wells Fargo operates both in the United States and internationally.

Approaching the third year anniversary of its asset cap, Wells Fargo will be pushing to have removed what many see as the biggest hurdle for the bank’s stock prices late in 2021.

14. Intel

Industry: Semiconductors

Profit: $21.05 billion

Profit change: N/A

Fortune Global 500 rank: 138

Bottom line: Offering design, manufacturing, and sale of computer and technologies, Intel was founded in 1968 and is now considered an American manufacturer of semiconductor computer services. In 2020, Intel was ranked No. 20 on Forbes’ list of the “World’s Most Valuable Brands” after its brand reported growth.

Intel is focusing in 2021 on leadership in driving technology, introducing over 50 processors and 500 new computers, both for desktop and laptop designs. Following the pandemic, Intel is introducing new processors for mobile and gaming, education and business to offer more choices with less limits to its consumers.

13. Alibaba Group Holding

Industry: Online Commerce

Profit: $21.45 billion

Profit change: +63.8%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 132

Bottom line: Known by some as the largest online commerce company in the world, Alibaba Group Holding is by far the biggest in China. This single company hosts hundreds of millions of users, businesses and merchants, providing technology infrastructure and marketing reach to its brands and businesses.

Alibaba reported earnings in 2020 and the beginning of 2021 that far surpassed forecasted expectations, additionally noting that, for the first time, its cloud business achieved positive earnings (before interest and taxes).

12. Ping An Insurance

Industry: Financial Services

Profit: +33.2 billion

Profit change: 21.63%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 21

Bottom line: One of the largest financial services companies in the world, Ping An was founded in 1988 and provides life, property and casualty insurance as well as financial services and products. Ping An Insurance is China’s second-largest insurance company and first joint stock insurance company.

Consistently ranking as a top insurance brand globally, Ping An was the third most valuable global financial brand in the world as of 2018.

11. Bank of China

Industry: Finance and Banking

Profit: $27.13 billion

Profit change: -0.4%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 43

Bottom line: The oldest of the four major banks in China, the Bank of China (BOC) was founded in 1912 to replace the Imperial Bank of China. Representing the country as its foreign exchange specialist for over 40 years, BOC is the country's most internationally recognized bank with subsidiaries in over 25 countries and on every continent in the world.

The Bank of China has been the second-largest loan provider in the country since 2009, and its services also include personal and corporate banking, investment banking and insurance. Bank of China was the only one of China’s four top banks to post a profit change in the negative for 2020.

10. Bank of American Corp.

Industry: Finances and Banking

Profit: $27.43 billion

Profit change: -2.5%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 58

Bottom line: In the United States, Bank of America ranks as one of the largest financial and banking corporations. Formed in 1998 from Nations Bank’s acquisition of BankAmerica, its headquarters is in Charlotte, North Carolina. A global leader in management of wealth and corporate investment and trading, Bank of America experienced a major fraud lawsuit in 2013 and is facing similar accusations since January 2021.

A federal lawsuit was filed for failing to secure Californian unemployment debit cards. The company’s negligence in this issue has been proven to have left unemployed Californians unable to access badly needed funds due to criminal breach of debit cards. “The events of 2020 were hard enough without Bank of America making life even more difficult for hard-working people who were unable to pay rent, heat their homes or put food on the table,” attorney Mary Alexander said in a statement.

With an overall profit loss in 2020, Bank of America may be facing further scrutiny following such a largely covered second scandal.

9. Agricultural Bank of China

Industry: Finances and Banking

Profit: $30.70 billion

Profit change: +0.1%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 35

Bottom line: Rising only barely in profit change for 2020, the Agricultural Bank of China, otherwise known as AgBank, has been public since 2010. Founded in 1951, the company holds multi-trillion dollars in assets, well over 300,000 retail customers, millions of corporate clients and bank branches throughout the world. AgBank is the third largest lending provider from banks across the globe.

Focusing on international commercial banking and financial services, this is a change from financing operations in rural China as it did during its origination. As one of the four major banks in China, AgBank is reportedly taking 35 percent of profit increases to offset losses in line with market expectations following the pandemic.

8. Alphabet

Industry: Conglomerate

Profit: $34.34 billion

Profit change: +11.7%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 29

Bottom line: A holding company engaging in operation and acquisition of various companies, Alphabet operated through Google and Other Bets segments. Ads, hardware, Google Cloud, Google Maps, YouTube and other apps for Android and Chrome are operated under the Google segment. Businesses like Waymo, Verily, Calico, Access and more are under the Other Bets segment.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in California, Alphabet was the renaming of Google, making Google a subsidiary. This change allowed Google to expand its domain to technology conglomerate. Alphabet is now better able to account for income streams from outside subsidiaries and is a lesser risk of antitrust violations.

7. JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Industry: Finances and Banking

Profit: $36.43 billion

Profit change: +12.2%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 38

Bottom line: This commercial banking and financial holding company offers lending, investment banking, financial solutions, asset management and treasury services. Founded in 2000, JPMorgan’s wide range of services include financial offerings to large organizations, small businesses and governments as well as individual consumers.

Its Corporate & Investment Bank segment is its major source of net income and continues to grow fast, while the Consumer & Community Banking segment is its largest source of revenue. Most recently, JPMorgan is following its decision to close private banking in Brazil with the decision to shut down private banking segments in Mexico to continue to post profit margins in the black.

6. China Construction Bank

Industry: Finances and Banking

Profit: $38.61 billion

Profit change: +0.3%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 30

Bottom line: Another one of China’s largest four banks, China Construction Bank was founded in 1954 and provides a variety of services to both corporate and personal banking clients. China Construction Bank operates established subsidiaries in Luxembourg, Australia, South Korea, South Africa and the United States.

China Construction Bank is one of the country’s banking companies that make up more than one-third of the industry’s total assets. With profits on the decline in the other four main China banks, China Construction managed to post a small but important profit change in the positive.

5. Microsoft

Industry: Information Technology

Profit: $39.24 billion

Profit change: +136.8%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 47

Bottom line: Known as one of the top IT companies in the world, rivaled closely by Apple, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports software, devices and services. Though the company posted a profit in 2020, more than 20,000 United Stated organizations have reportedly been compromised as of March 2021, due to hacking through Microsoft’s email software.

This latest hack has affected town governments, credit unions and small businesses and is still being investigated. Organizations in Europe and Asia are also reporting being affected by the hack, which is reportedly continuing, regardless of emergency patches being issued by Microsoft. Declining to comment, the IT powerhouse said it was working alongside security and government agencies to help its consumers.

4. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China

Industry: Finance and Banking

Profit: $45.20 billion

Profit change: +0.4%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 24

Bottom line: Founded in 1984, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is considered the top of the most profitable four banks in China. The largest multinational bank in the world, as measured by total number of assets, specializes in creating business loans for manufacturers, power companies, retailers and other businesses. Hosting over 400 overseas subsidiaries, ICBC became home to the first Chinese bank in Kuwait in 2014, leading to a strategy to expand internationally.

Although China’s major banks reported the largest drop in profit in over 10 years following the pandemic in 2020, provisions have been set in place from profits to cover potential losses, with ICBC requiring the least of China’s top four banks, with only 27 percent.

3. Apple

Industry: Information Technology

Profit: $55.26 billion

Profit change: -7.2%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 12

Bottom line: Founded in California in 1976, Apple is an IT company specializing in products such as laptops, tablets, cellphones, wearable technology and television products. A leader in the industry, Apple is an innovator with its award-winning OS X operating system.

As many companies posted marked losses in 2020 in the second quarter, Apple released an updated iPad Pro and MacBook Air, increasing total net sales by 1 percent for the quarter compared to 2019. Unlike its Microsoft competitor, which focuses on software development, Apple continues to develop new and innovative products, wearables and consumer-centric devices.

2. Berkshire Hathaway

Industry: Conglomerate

Profit: $81.42 billion

Profit change: +1924.8%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 14

Bottom line: Founded in 1839, Berkshire Hathaway is one of the largest publicly traded holding companies in the world, owning several widely known private businesses, such as Fruit of the Loom and GEICO, and holding minority interests in public companies like Apple. Owned and still run by famous investor Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway has a long history of successful investments, growing to the ninth largest public company in the world for market capitalization.

The company set a record in 2020 when it bought back nearly $25 billion of its own shares. Buffet is reportedly playing it safe so far in 2021 by spending more on smaller investments rather than taking huge financial risks.

1. Saudi Aramco

Industry: Oil & Gas

Profit: $88.21 billion

Profit change: -20.5%

Fortune Global 500 rank: 6

Bottom line: Saudi Aramco, based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, is the world’s

largest producer of oil, with an estimated 270 billion barrels of oil in reserves alone. In 2019, the company was producing a reported 13.2 million barrels per day, which was more than five times what competitor Exxon Mobil was reportedly producing.

Now publicly traded, this marks the second consecutive year that Saudi Aramco ranks at the top of the world’s most profitable companies.