The Indian Oil Corporation remains the only Indian firm in the Fortune 500 list of global majors and has improved its rank to 191 this year, from 226 the previous year.

The state-run refiner, with revenues of $22,506.2 million, is ranked ahead of Malaysian Petronas (ranked 204), Korean LG International (205) and China Mobile Communications (230), the Fortune magazine announced on Monday.

For the second year running, Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retailer, tops the Fortune Global 500.

General Motors (United States) is at No. 2, Exxon Mobile (US) No. 3, Royal Dutch/Shell Group (Netherlands/Britain) No. 4, BP (Britain) No. 5, Ford Motor (US) No. 6, DaimlerChrysler (Germany) No. 7, Toyota Motors (Japan) No. 8, General Electric (US) No. 9 and Mitsubishi No. 10.

The complete list appears in the July 21 issue of Fortune, available on newsstands on July 14, the magazine said in a statement.

This year, 116 Asian companies were ranked in the Global 500, with Japan (88 companies), South Korea (13) and China (11) leading the region.

"Asian companies ranked in the Global 500 for the first time include China Life Insurance (No. 290), Kookmin Bank (330), Seiko Epson (463) and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (500)," Fortune said.

The IOC had reported a net profit of Rs 6,115 crore (Rs 61.15 billion) on a turnover of Rs 119,848 crore (Rs 1,198.48 billion) in 2002-03 (April to March).

"The global economy was a world of hurt in 2002, and the numbers in the Fortune Global 500 bear that out: revenues fell $281 billion, profits plunged 56 per cent, and the world's 500 largest companies employed 1.3 million fewer workers than in 2001," the magazine said in its introduction to the list.

Leading all the losers this year was AOL Time Warner (the parent company of Fortune's publisher), with a $98.7 billion-loss, an amount equal to the combined gross domestic product of Chile and Vietnam. That accounts for more than half the drop in profits from the previous year for the entire list.

"Excluding AOL, the Global 499 profits decreased by 2 per cent, better than last year's decline in profits, which was twice as large," it said.

Some of the not-so-bad news is coming out of Japan, where the 88 Japanese companies who made this year's list lost $2.3 billion in 2002, compared to $33.6 billion in 2001.

Other Asian countries experiencing a jump in profits include South Korea, where profits increased 29 per cent and China, where profits were up 10 per cent.

In Europe, Britain recorded a 50 per cent jump in profits.

Incidentally, the IOC more than doubled its net profit in 2002-03 from Rs 2,885 crore (Rs 28.85 billion) in the previous year.