China sees revenue growth in private firms

China's top 500 private firms registered total operation revenue at 38.32 trillion yuan ($5.5 trillion), up 9.13 percent in the latest China's Top 500 Private Firms released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce on Wednesday.

This year's ranking of the top 500 private firms is the 24th of its kind. It includes 8,602 firms with an annual operation revenue of at least 500 million yuan. The threshold to be a Top 500 firm has been lifted by 2.87 billion yuan from the previous year to 26.37 billion yuan. There were 19 firms that saw their operation revenue exceeding 300 billion yuan.

The total asset of the top 500 stood at 41.64 trillion yuan, down 17.92 percent year-on-year. Their net profit after tax was 1.73 trillion yuan, down 12.28 percent. The net profit margin on sales, net profit ratio and return on equity recorded 4.51 percent, 3.74 percent and 11.44 percent respectively. Their operation revenue per capita and net profit per capita reached 3.5 million yuan and 157,900 yuan. The turnover of total capital was 82.98 percent.

A total of 342 firms belonged to the secondary industry, 23 firms more than last year. As many as 301 were manufacturing enterprises, maintaining a leading position among the top 500. Ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industries, general business and construction were the top three fields the firms specialized in.

Among the top 500, 288 firms had at least 3 percent of their employees doing research and 158 firms had over 10 percent. Eighty firms had an investment intensity of more than 3 percent, and six firms had over 10 percent.

Huawei continued to top the rank with a research investment of 142.7 billion yuan. Over 80 percent of the top 500 had launched or planned to launch digital transformation and 79.2 percent carried out green development strategy. The number of patents they applied was up 53.60 percent from last year, and the number of valid trademarks registered in China increased by 25.38 percent over the previous year.