China's top 500 private companies post steady growth

China's leading private enterprises reported steady growth in scale last year, while accelerating their overseas expansion and adoption of digital and artificial intelligence technologies, according to a major ranking released on Tuesday.

The 2026 China top 500 private enterprises list, released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, showed that the 500 companies generated combined revenue of 44.93 trillion yuan ($6.7 trillion) in 2025, or 89.85 billion yuan per company on average, up 4.35 percent from a year earlier.

Their combined net profit reached 1.83 trillion yuan, or 3.65 billion yuan per company, up 1.31 percent year-on-year.

The scale of the largest private companies continued to expand. A total of 110 companies reported annual revenue exceeding 100 billion yuan, five more than a year earlier, while 12 surpassed 500 billion yuan.

Their combined assets reached 53.74 trillion yuan, up 5.05 percent year-on-year. Ninety-nine companies held assets of more than 100 billion yuan, two more than the previous year, while 17 had assets exceeding 500 billion yuan.

In total, 6,350 companies with annual revenue of at least 1 billion yuan in 2025 took part in the ranking, with the top 500 ranked by revenue.

JD topped the list, followed by Alibaba Group and Hengli Group. Huawei Investment & Holding, BYD, Tencent Holdings, Zhejiang Rongsheng Holding Group, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, Lenovo Group and Shandong Weiqiao Venture Co Ltd completed the top 10.

The growing scale of China's largest private companies has been matched by a stronger global presence. Twenty-nine of the top 500 made this year's Fortune Global 500 list, according to the federation.

Overseas revenue generated by the 500 companies rose 11.23 percent to 3.70 trillion yuan, significantly outpacing their overall revenue growth. Their overseas assets stood at 2.86 trillion yuan at the end of 2025, up 17.61 percent, while 209 companies carried out overseas investment, an increase of 3.98 percent.

Technology adoption is also becoming a broader feature of their growth strategies. The survey showed that over 60 percent of the companies had formulated strategies for digital transformation and AI applications.

Meanwhile, 53.2 percent were advancing smart manufacturing, while half of the companies were developing or applying digital products and services, showing the growing role of digital and intelligent technologies in improving operations and supporting new sources of growth.