Forbes' 2025 Global 2000 List: Germany - The World’s Largest Companies Ranked

Germany has the third-largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, behind only the U.S. and China but its momentum has stalled in recent years. Its $4.5 trillion GDP is expected to contract in 2025 for the third year in a row by a modest 0.3%, and its renowned auto industry is going through a rough patch. Automakers Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Daimler Truck and Porsche SE, the holding company which owns large stakes in Porsche and Volkswagen, all fell more than 10 spots on the list.

Other parts of Germany’s economy have been bolstered by a stimulus plan announced in March, promoted by newly-elected chancellor Friedrich Merz. The country has pledged to establish a new $570 million infrastructure fund to finance construction and special projects for the next 10 years and loosened its borrowing caps. The plan triggered a rally for electric utilities stocks like E.ON, which rose 103 spots to No. 176 on the Global 2000, RWE, which moved up 59 slots to 278th, and EnBW, up 268 spots from 714th to 446th. All three have recorded significant profit growth since last year.

The Global 2000 ranks the largest companies in the world using four metrics: sales, profits, asset and market value. As a group, the 49 companies from Germany account for $2.3 trillion in sales, $94.8 billion in profits, $7.2 trillion in assets and $2.1 trillion in market value. We used the latest 12 months of financial data available to us as of April 25, 2015 to calculate the factors used in our rankings.