(BFM Bourse) – The ten largest capitalizations on the Japanese Stock Exchange highlight several fairly diversified sectors, between industry, finance, telecoms, clothing and electronics.
What are the largest groups on the stock market by country? To find out, the BFM Bourse editorial team decided to devote an article to each major market, retaining the ten largest market capitalizations by country based on data from companiesmarket.com.
Japan is a market that is currently on the rise. The Nikkei 225, the main index of the Tokyo market, has gained 16.5% since the start of the year and 41.7% over one year, a performance which even eclipses that of the American markets. And allows Japan to consolidate its place as the third stock market in the world (behind the United States and China) with 6,200 billion dollars.
However, a simple look at the ranking of the 10 largest market capitalizations in Japan reveals that the place is not full of mega-capitalizations either. The fault lies somewhere in the weakness of the yen, which penalizes Japanese groups once their market capitalizations are converted into dollars.
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Automobile, samurai and Warren Buffet
Toyota, however, stands out very clearly. The Japanese group remains the leading car manufacturer in terms of volumes with 11.23 million units sold in 2023. Volkswagen is far behind with 9.24 million vehicles. The automotive group is a good flagship with an increase of 40% since the start of the year and 98% over one year. The manufacturer was supported by the weak yen, a recovery in volumes, but also by excellent results. However, its reputation has been tarnished in recent months by a major safety test falsification scandal surrounding its subsidiary Daihatsu.
In second place is Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, the country’s largest bank. Its origins date back to the 18th century when a former samurai, Yataro Iwasaki, founded a company which took the name Mitsubishi and which launched into financial services in 1885 by buying a bank which later became Mitsubishi Bank in 1919. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group does not currently have any capital links with other Mitsubishi companies.
Tokyo Electron, a company that designs semiconductor equipment, comes in third. Next comes Sony, which is perhaps the best known of the companies in this top 10. If the general public mainly knows the company for video games and its Playstation console, this segment represents 32% of its revenues (over the last full financial year). ), the group is also present in music, cinema, consumer electronics, professional imaging and even life sciences.
Keyence is fifth. This company based in Osaka produces professional electronic equipment such as sensors, vision systems, laser markers and even barcodes.
The telecom operator Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, whose origins date back to 1869 when the telegraph arrived in Japan, is sixth.
Mitsubishi Corporation takes seventh place. It is not easy to define this company which is a “sogo shosha”, a type of international trading house which serves as an intermediary for the development of imports and exports. The famous financier Warren Buffett has invested in five of these houses (Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Marubeni, Itochu and Mitsui), declaring last year that he was very proud of his positions in the “sogo shosha”.
In eighth place we find Fast Retailing. Its name probably doesn’t mean anything to you but it is quite simply the company that owns the clothing brands Uniqlo, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princesse Tam Tam.
Followed by the industrial and electronics conglomerate Hitachi, and Sotfbank, a technological conglomerate present in the internet (it owns Yahoo! Japan), mobile telephony, robotics and energy. Softbank also holds stakes in foreign groups such as the German Deutsche Telekom, the Chinese Alibaba and the British Arm.
Julien Marion – ©2024 BFM Bourse