FORTUNE DECEMBER 2020 /JANUARY 2021 119Naver
2020 RANK: 33
SOUTH KOREA (KS:
035420 , $252)Naver, which runs
the biggest search
engine in South Ko-
rea, has lately been
focused on fast-
growing businesses
like fintech, cloud
storage, and digital
comics (its cartoon
platform has nearly
70 million monthly
users)—moves that
helped it grow oper-
ating revenue 24% in
the most recent
quarter. The com-
pany is in the midst of
merging its messag-
ing app with Soft-
Bank’s Z Holdings
(formerly Yahoo Ja-
pan) in a deal slated
to close next year.Inter-
continental
Exchange
39 U.S. (ICE, $1 0 1)The parent com-
pany of the New York
Stock Exchange op-
erates a range of
regulated financial
marketplaces for
trading everything
from agricultural
commodities to
credit derivatives. In
February, ICE made
a surprising $3 0 -bil-
lion-plus takeover
offer for online re-
tailer eBay, but
quickly abandoned
the deal after inves-
tors expressed their
skepticism by bid-
ding down the
stocks of both com-
panies. Still, ICE’s
share price has
nearly doubled over
the past five years.Te n c e n t
Holdings
45 CHINA (HK: 7 00 , $76)Tencent has a dom-
inant share in Chi-
na’s gaming market—
which surged during
COVID-19 lock-
downs in China—
and owns super-app
WeChat, which has
1.2 billion users. To-
gether, Tencent’s
operations consti-
tute the largest on-
line community in
China. Growth in
gaming helped
boost Tencent’s
sales 29% in the
third quarter. But its
stock fell from re-
cent highs in early
November after Bei-
jing proposed new
rules to prevent anti-
trust behavior by
China’s tech giants.Amazon
37 U.S. (AMZN, $3, 099 )E-c ommerce and
cloud-storage giant
Amazon has been
one of the biggest
beneficiaries of
changing consumer
behavior during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Its sales jumped
35% to more than
$26 0 billion in the
first nine months of
2020 , as people
stopped going to
stores and spent
more online. The
company’s market-
leading cloud-
computing division,
Amazon Web Ser-
vices, has also bene-
fited in 2 020 as the
hosting platform for
everything from
Netflix to Zoom.B IG TECH PLATFORMS
Alibaba Group Holding
40 CHINA (BABA, $271)Alibaba retained its majority share of
China’s massive e-commerce market
throughout the worst of the pandemic,
and the behemoth still has room to grow.
Live-streaming—in which brand repre-
sentatives broadcast to viewers who can
purchase items featured in the video—was
key to its pandemic strategy. In February it
removed service fees for new merchants on
its live-streaming platform Taobao Live, and
saw the number of new sellers spike 719%
compared with the previous month. In April,
Alibaba announced it will invest $28 billion
in cloud-computing infrastructure over the
next three years, a clear signal of its focus
on international expansion.RACKING UP IN RETAIL
Employees sit next to “pass” and “fail” bins on
a garment production line at Alibaba’s new A.I.-
ALIBABA: QILAI SHEN—BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES enabled “smart factory” in Hangzhou, China.