Those damn Saudis!
The World’s 50 Most Profitable Companies in 2024
January 16, 2025
By Dorothy Neufeld, Visual Capitalist
From Big Tech to energy giants, a select group of corporate titans continues to dominate the financial landscape, generating profits that dwarf the GDPs of some nations.
This graphic visualizes the world’s 50 most profitable companies in 2024, based on data from Fortune. Rankings include public and private companies that report financial data.
Figures represent corporate profits after tax, extraordinary credits, and noncontrolling interests for company fiscal years ended on or before March 31, 2024.
Saudi Aramco was the world’s most profitable company in 2024, recording $120.7 billion in profits last year.
The national oil company of Saudi Arabia was also the sixth-largest company in the world by market capitalization and the most valuable non-U.S. company, as of January 2025.
With the largest proven oil reserves globally, Saudi Aramco’s production costs are $3 a barrel—a fraction of Western oil producers—leading it to generate more profits than any other company in the world.
Coming in at second is Apple, fueled by its high-margin services arm and iPhone sales, generating $97 billion in profits. Warren Buffett’s conglomerate holding company Berkshire Hathaway came in at third, with $96.2 billion in profits.
Berkshire Hathaway also joined the $1 trillion market cap club this August, among the ranks of tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
Across the top 50 most profitable companies, 14 are in the financial industry, followed by 12 in energy, and eight in technology.
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