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

Japan’s stock market has been on a roller-coaster ride over the past year. Its benchmark Nikkei index reached an all-time high in July 2024, driven by corporate governance reforms and robust company earnings, then crashed more than 25% in less than four weeks on a surprise interest rate hike by the Bank of Japan. Though the index rebounded shortly after, its gains were trimmed in early 2025 as U.S. President Donald Trump ignited his trade war.

The Global 2000 ranks the largest companies in the world using four metrics: sales, profits, asset and market value. As a group, the 180 companies from Japan account for $4.2 trillion in sales, $297 billion in profits, $20.1 trillion in assets and $4.1 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.