Fortune’s Global 25

General Motors Corp., Exxon Corp. and Ford Motor Co. sold enough of their merchandise last year to rank, respectively, as the world’s three largest industrial companies, Fortune magazine reported.

It marks the second time U.S. companies have swept the three top slots in the four years Fortune has been compiling the “Global 500” list. The list is a hybrid of the better-known Fortune 500 list of U.S. industrial companies, ranked by annual sales.

Last year, GM, Exxon and Ford were the only industrial companies to end the year with revenue exceeding $100 billion.

Earnings of all industries dropped 60%, partly because of a required accounting change that affected U.S. companies. The change, which requires them to set aside money for retiree health benefit liabilities, contributed heavily to the bottom-line decline.

Without the effects of the accounting change, Fortune says, the Global 500 as a whole would have suffered a 6.6% decline in earnings.

The top 25 companies, based on 1992 sales from Fortune magazine’s 1992 Global 500 list of industrial companies:

Rank last Rank Company/country year 1. General Motors, United States unchanged 2. Exxon, United States 3rd 3. Ford, United States 4th 4. Royal Dutch/Shell, Britain-Netherlands 2nd $98.94 5. Toyota, Japan unchanged 6. IRI, Italy 7th 7. IBM, United States 6th 8. Daimler-Benz, Germany 11th 9. General Electric, United States 8th 10. Hitachi, Japan 9th 11. British Petroleum, Britain 10th 12. Matsushita Electric, Japan unchanged 13. Mobil, United States unchanged 14. Volkswagen, Germany 17th 15. Siemens, Germany 18th 16. Nissan, Japan 14th 17. Philip Morris, United States 15th 18. Samsung, South Korea 19th 19. Fiat, Italy 16th 20. Unilever, Britain-Netherlands unchanged 21. ENI, Italy unchanged 22. Elf Aquitaine, France 24th 23. Nestle, Switzerland 26th 24. Chevron, United States 25th 25. Toshiba, Japan 27th

1992 revenue Rank (billions) 1. $132.77 2. $103.55 3. $100.79 4. Britain-Netherlands 5. $79.11 6. $67.55 7. $65.10 8. $63.34 9. $62.20 10. $61.47 11. $59.22 12. $57.48 13. $57.39 14. $56.73 15. $51.40 16. $50.25 17. $50.16 18. $49.56 19. $47.93 20. $43.96 21. $40.37 22. $39.72 23. $39.06 24. $38.52 25. $37.47