With a flourishing entrepreneurial spirit and burgeoning middle class, India is home to some of the world’s largest corporations. Recently, a family-run company made it among the biggest. Projected to be the world’s most populous nation by 2029, India is emerging as an economic powerhouse, poised to make a significant global impact in the years ahead.
We have compiled a list of the top ten largest companies in India (by revenue):
10. Coal India Limited
Industry: Coal Mining
Revenue: $18.7 billion
CIL is a state-controlled coal mining company and the world’s largest producer of coal. Created as a public-sector company in 1975, Coal India Limited was formed to establish better efficiency in the coal sector, under the new department of coal that was established in 1974.
CIL produces coal through seven of its wholly owned subsidiaries: Eastern Coalfields Limited, Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Central Coalfields Limited, Western Coalfields Limited, South-Eastern Coalfields Limited, Northern Coalfield Limited and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited.
In 2018, CIL announced a new policy that would transfer each of its approximate 20,000 executives every five years in an effort to improve management skill sets.
9. Tata Steel
Industry: Steel and Iron
Revenue: $20.8 billion
Tata Steel Limited (formerly Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited) is an Indian multinational steel-making company headquartered in Mumbai, India, and a subsidiary of the Tata Group.
Tata Steel is the 12th-largest steel producing company in the world, with an annual crude steel capacity of 23.8 million tonnes, and the largest private-sector steel company in India measured by domestic production.
8. Rajesh Exports Limited
Industry: Wholesalers
Revenue: $26.5 billion
Headquartered in Bangalore, with operations across the world, Rajesh Exports Limited (REL) is the largest exporter of gold products in India. With a unique operational model in the industry, REL is one of the few companies that engage in every level of the gold-producing process, from refining to retailing. The company operates a network of 80 retail jewellery showrooms under the brand name of SHUBH.
The company was founded in 1989 by the current executive chairman, Rajesh Mehta, along with his brother Prashant Mehta with a meagre Rs. 12,000. The family-run company now processes nearly 35 per cent of the total gold mined in the world.
7. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited
Industry: Oil and Gas
Revenue: $31.3 billion
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) is one of the largest Oil and Gas Companies in India. HPCL was incorporated as a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) by the Indian government through a number of mergers and takeovers including Esso Standard, Lube Limited, Caltex Oil Refining Ltd and Kosan Gas, throughout the 1970s.
Today, HPCL produces refined crude oil products from its refineries in Mumbai (with a capacity of 6.5 million metric tonnes per annum) and Visakhapatnam (with a capacity of 8.3 million metric tonnes per annum). The Mumbai-headquartered oil and gas giant operates the second-largest petroleum products pipeline network in the country.
6. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited
Industry: Oil and Gas
Revenue: $33.7 billion
Founded in 1976 through the takeover of Burmah-Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India by the Indian Government, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) has evolved to become the best performing “Navratna” Public Sector Undertaking with a revenue of $33.7 billion. Bharat Petroleum operates four different refineries: Mumbai Refinery (with a capacity of 13 million metric tonnes per annum), Kochi Refineries (with a capacity of 9.5 million metric tonnes per annum), Bina Refinery (with a capacity of 6 million metric per annum) and Numaligarh Refinery (with a capacity of 3 million metric tonnes per annum).
In 2018, the oil and gas giant completed an expansion project to become the largest public sector refinery in India.
5. Tata Motors
Industry: Motor Vehicles and Parts
Revenue: $42.5 billion
A member of the Tata Group and headquartered in Mumbai, Tata Motors boasts a presence in 175 countries around the globe. The company’s product line-up includes an extensive range of cars, sports utility vehicles, trucks, buses and defence vehicles. With a total of over 8.5 Tata-branded vehicles worldwide, Tata Motors is Asia’s largest and the 17th-largest automobile manufacturing company in the world.
Tata Motors’ R&D centres house Asia’s first anechoic chamber, India’s first full vehicle crash test facility and the country’s only full climate test facility. The company’s Tata Hexa SUV won Family Car of the Year at the 10th TopGear India Magazine Awards in 2018.
4. State Bank of India
Industry: Banking and Financial Services
Revenue: $43.2 billion
State Bank of India (SEBI) is the largest banking and financial services company in India, managing over $300 billion in assets. The state-owned global bank is headquartered in Mumbai and operates over 14,000 branches in India with foreign offices in 36 countries. The bank traces its ancestry to British India, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian subcontinent.
Recently, the bank announced its plan to go carbon neutral by 2030. The initiative will involve migrating to electric vehicles, banning plastic in SEBI offices and the installation of solar panels on 250 buildings and 12,000 ATMs.
3. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited
Industry: Oil and Gas
Revenue: $47 billion
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is India’s largest crude oil and natural gas company, producing approximately 70 per cent of the country’s domestic crude oil output. It was founded in 1956 as a state-owned enterprise controlled by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. ONGC ranks as the 18th-largest energy company in the world.
ONGC is the only Indian public sector company to feature in Fortune’s Most Admired Energy Companies list. Transparency International ranked it 26th for Transparency in Corporate Reporting among the biggest publicly traded global companies.
2. Reliance Industries Limited
Industry: Conglomerate
Revenue: $57.9 billion
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is the largest private sector corporation in India. Headquartered in Mumbai, the company operates across a number of lucrative industries including energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail and telecommunications.
Its subsidiary, wireless service provider Reliance Jio, was ranked number one in India and number 17 in the world by Fast Company in their 2018 Most Innovative Company list.
Reliance Industries’ energy division was recently ranked number three among the Top 250 Global Energy Companies by S&P Global Platts. Reliance Industries is also an active driver of worker’s rights, winning the Healthy Workplace Award of the Arogya World India Trust presented in collaboration with the Public Health Foundation of India.
1. Indian Oil Corporation
Industry: Oil and Gas
Revenue: $59.9 billion
Indian Oil Corporation is the largest company in India and the leader in the nation’s oil and gas industry. Founded in 1959, Indian Oil has evolved into a global enterprise, with subsidiaries in Sri Lanka, Mauritius and the United Arab Emirates. Its sights are set on venturing into new markets across Asia and Africa.
Indian Oil Corporation is the highest-ranked Indian company in the Fortune Global 500 listing, at the 137th position in 2018, and the number one petroleum trading company among the national oil companies in the Asia-Pacific region. The company is ranked in the top 30 of India’s best companies to work for and is the sixth most valued brand in India according to Brand Finance’s annual survey.