The World's Largest Tech Companies 2017: Apple And Samsung Lead, Facebook Rises

Despite pressure from Asia, American companies dominate the tech scene. Forty-nine of the world's largest tech companies in 2017 hail from the United States.

Apple AAPL -1.22% took the top spot in the tech group weeks after shares hit a new record high, reaching over $147 per share for the first time on May 2 despite disappointing iPhone sales. For the past year, Apple saw $217 billion in sales, $45 billion in profit, $331 billion in assets and a market cap of $752 billion.

Apple is not only the largest tech company in the world, but also also the 9th largest company in the world. Though the company returns to the global top ten, Apple sits one spot lower than it did it 2016, where it ranked as the 8th largest company in the world.

With representatives from 17 countries, tech companies account for 118 spots on Forbes' Global 2000, our annual ranking of the world’s largest public companies.

Fifteen of the top 25 largest tech companies are from the United States, with eight in the top 10: Apple, Microsoft MSFT +0.98%, Alphabet , IBMIBM -0.22%, Intel INTC -5.29%, Cisco Systems CSCO +1.02%, Oracle andFacebook FB -1.06%, which rose 69 spots on the Global 2000 list.

Yet again, South Korea-based Samsung took second place, with $174 billion in sales, $19 billion in profit, $217 billion in assets and a market cap of $254 billion. Hon Hai Precision Industry was the the only other company to break into the top 10 from the Asia-Pacific region.

Microsoft MSFT +0.98% took the number three tech spot, with $85 billion in sales, $16.7 billion in profit, assets of $224 billion and a $507.5 billion market value.

New to this list this year is Snap, Inc., the biggest social media IPO since Twitter went public three years ago. The company recently went public in March and is ranked the 101th largest tech company, and 1,693rd largest company in the world. Other tech newcomers include South Korea's SK Holdings Co., Ltd. (a top 25 tech finisher), Dell Technologies , industrial growth company Fortive and semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices AMD +0.27%, Inc.

This list also saw big moves from the likes of NVIDIA NVDA +0.36%, which jumped up 379 spots in the global list and ranked 41st in the tech list, and Nokia , which fell 248 spots from the global list but still managed to grab the 33rd largest tech company spot. Switzerland semiconductor company STMicroelectronics NV had one of the largest jumps, moving 816 spots from the 2,315th largest company in the world to 1,499.