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Why has the China-US profit gap widened on the Fortune Global 500?
Despite posting strong revenues, China’s multinationals logged average profits of US$4.5 billion in 2025, just 40 per cent of US counterparts’ figure
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Zhu Wenqianin Beijing
China’s unaddressed economic structural problems are swallowing profits and leaving its multinationals falling far behind their US peers in the latest Fortune Global 500 list, despite its firms remaining strong in terms of revenue.
The profit gap between Chinese and US companies has continued to widen. Chinese companies posted an average profit of US$4.5 billion in 2025, or some 40 per cent of the US$11.24 billion recorded by their US counterparts, according to the list released by Fortune magazine on Tuesday.
Since 2021, the average profit of Chinese companies has climbed by 27 per cent. While average profits across all 500 firms rose by 105 per cent, those of US companies jumped 110 per cent.
“New wealth creation in recent years is concentrated in advanced technology and artificial intelligence. Driven by the capital market’s multiplier effect, leading American AI firms have accumulated massive wealth from asset gains,” said Tang Dajie, a senior researcher at the China Enterprise Institute, a Beijing-based think tank.
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