China has 23 firms in this year's top 500 companies on the latest Fortune magazine's Global 500, an annual ranking list of companies worldwide according to their revenue from the year before.

Six new Chinese companies made it into the Global 500 this year, the most number of additions in the world.

Most of these Chinese companies are big state-owned enterprises from petroleum, electrical power, banking, IT, trading, insurance, metallurgy, automobile, and construction industries.

Among the six new companies, four are from China's mainland, namely, China Railway Engineering, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, China Railway Construction, and China State Construction. Two are from Taiwan - Quanta Computer and Cathay Financial Holdings.

Sinopec, the front-runner of all Chinese companies, with US$99 billion revenue took the 23rd place in this year's list, rising eight positions compared with last year.

Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry is No. 206 on the list, an astonishing jump of 165 positions compared with last year.

Another noticeable rise was Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa, which climbed from No. 347 last year to this year's No. 259.

China has a total of 18 companies listed in the top 500 last year.

Haier, the world's 4th-largest white goods manufacturer, and Lenovo, which acquired IBM's Personal Computing Division last year, were not on the list.

In the global sphere, Texas-based gas company Exxon Mobil with US$340 billion revenue took the first place on Fortune magazine's list this year.

Wal-Mart Stores dropped to second place with US$316 billion in revenue this year after four years in the list's top spot.

Other top 10 companies are Royal Dutch Shell, BP, General Motors, Chevron, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota Motor, Ford Motor and ConocoPhillips.

Six of the top 10 are American companies. In all, 170 of the world's largest companies are based in the United States.

Editor: Yan