Top state-backed business association, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC) which ranks leading Chinese companies annually, named telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics company Huawei as a top private enterprise for the fourth straight time.
An analyst said Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. topped the list of 500 private enterprises because the company had inspired the Chinese during these trying times in global trade.
The indebted HNA group, involved in aviation, financial services, logistics, real estate, and tourism among others is the second placer while home appliance retail conglomerate, Suning Holdings Group is at third.
Amer International, Evergrande, JD.com, Country Garden, Hengli Group, Legend Holdings, and Gome Holdings were also among the top companies.
For undisclosed reasons, some Chinese enterprise giants like Alibaba, Ping An and Tencent did not join in the competition.
The report of the ACFIC released at the Top 500 Private Enterprises Summit 2019 held in Xining, the capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, stated that the list is based on the companies' 2018 revenue income.
Huawei had 721.2 billion yuan. The HNA Group's revenue was 618.3 billion yuan and Suning's revenue income was at 602.4 billion yuan.
To get listed, an enterprise's 2018 revenue should be more than 18.59 billion yuan.
The total revenue of these 500 companies was 28.5 trillion yuan, up by 16.44 percent year-on-year.
Companies with over 300 billion yuan in revenue went up as well from nine to 12 according to Huang Rong, vice chairman of the ACFIC.
China's top 500 list is similar to the US' Chamber of Commerce.
Started in 1953, the ACFIC is "a bridge for the party and the government" "with the non-public economy."
However, Xiao Lei, a Beijing-based financial columnist says that this ranking of Chinese enterprises is "beyond making just economic sense."
He added that there are different ways to rank companies and praising and supporting companies could affect results.
He verified that Huawei is "a role model that inspires the Chinese during the trade war with the US."
The company's domestic sales still went up after it got sanctioned by the US. This helped the firm offset sales.
The launch of its Harmony operating system is considered a "strategic breakout" that is foreseen to end US' domination in technology.
Though second placer HNA is undergoing debt issues, it's a "nationalist brand" and it's been getting "official support."
It's defaulting on onshore bonds after getting too much debt on an acquisition spree.
Last week, HNA received close to 1 billion yuan from the Hainan government and had repaid US$300 million offshore bond just this Monday.
In the recently released Fortune Global 500, Chinese luminaries like insurance conglomerate Ping An made it at No. 29. Huawei was at No. 61, e-commerce JD.com at No. 139, e-commerce, Internet, retail and technology company Alibaba No. 182 and artificial intelligence, entertainment, Internet-related services, and products and technology company Tencent was at No. 237.
