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Revenues of leading companies have generally declined, and the industry remains in a prolonged period of downturn. Recently, the American magazine Chemical Week released a list of the world’s companies with revenues of over one billion dollars. The rankings show that in 2024, the revenue of leading companies in the global chemical industry declined overall, though the degree of decline was smaller than in the previous year, and the order of these companies remained stable as in recent years. However, in the long term, the overall sluggishness of the chemical industry remains unchanged. To this end, industry giants are still making active adjustments to improve their profitability. The landscape of the rankings remains stable The structure of the world’s leading chemical companies in 2024 continues to reflect the stability seen in recent years. According to the list, ranked by annual revenue, BASF has once again topped Chemical Week’s billion-dollar club for the sixth year in a row. Since 2015, BASF has remained at the top, with the exception of the brief period from 2017 to 2018 when Dow and DuPont merged to form an industry giant. Sinopec Group came in second, while Dow Chemical surpassed Formosa Plastics Group to take third place. In the second half of the top ten, familiar names such as LyondellBasell, Sinopec, Saudi Basic Industries, ExxonMobil, and INEOS still dominate the list. The biggest change among the top ten is the entry of Sinopec (in fourth place) and the exclusion of Sinochem Group. Chemical Weekly states that this stems from differences in information disclosure. In addition, large chemical companies such as Corning Industrial, TotalEnergies, and Reliance Industries do not disclose their revenue figures for chemicals. The latter part of the list also shows stability: companies such as Linde, Air Liquide, Mitsubishi Chemical, Canadian Nutrien, Wanhua Chemical, Bayer, and Xuanwei continue to be among the top 25. Some companies experienced significant changes in their rankings: Tongkun Group rose 9 places, while Hengyi Petrochemical dropped 13 places. Indian agrochemical company UPL and European specialty chemicals firm DSM-Solvay saw an increase in their rankings. Lithium industry giants Albemarle and Chilean company SQM saw their rankings drop by 29 and 31 places respectively, due to the persistently low prices of lithium. The prolonged downturn is pushing chemical companies to accelerate adjustments. 2024 has become the third year of continuous weakness in the chemical industry. In its annual report released in April, BASF noted that: \"Although the growth rate of the global chemical industry (3.9%) was higher than that of the overall industrial sector (2.7%), growth in Europe was weak in the second half of the year.\" Production capacity for basic chemicals in Europe continues to decline, and this trend will intensify further by 2025. ”Jim Fettling, CEO of Dow, said, “Europe remains the most expensive region in the world, with demand down 20% compared to pre-pandemic levels; companies are accelerating integration to meet local demands.” ” Industry leader BASF is pursuing asset sales in addition to shutting down its plants. At the beginning of the year, the Brazilian decorative coatings business was sold to Xuanwei; the remaining coatings business is currently under evaluation by several potential buyers, and there are also plans to spin off the agricultural solutions business. If the sale of its coatings business and the IPO of its agrochemical division are completed, BASF’s sales volume in 2024 will drop to $56 billion, falling behind Sinopec. In addition, BASF will also make strategic adjustments to its businesses in environmental catalysts and battery materials. DuPont, a veteran company that was among the top 10 in the billion-dollar club in 2016, has seen its ranking decline steadily, ending up in 36th place in 2024. After the spin-off of its electronics business, Qnity, and the sale of its aramid business, the annual sales volume of the remaining businesses will be less than $5 billion, potentially pushing them out of the top 75. The decline in revenue has slowed, while profitability is showing signs of recovery. Although revenues across the chemical industry generally declined in 2024, the rate of decline was significantly smaller compared to 2023. This is in line with the views of industry executives and analysts: the chemical industry has been in a prolonged downturn since late 2022 or early 2023; although there has been no significant improvement yet, the downward trend is slowing down. The median sales figure for companies in the billion-dollar club in 2024 declined by 1% on a year-on-year basis, with the median sales amount falling by 4% to around $8.81 billion. Although the performance is not optimistic, it is far better than the 10% median decline in 2023. Among the 106 companies on the list, 53 saw a decline in revenue, 12 remained unchanged, 40 experienced growth, and 1 could not be compared. Few companies experienced significant fluctuations in revenue; only 7 companies saw double-digit growth, while 9 companies experienced double-digit declines. In 2024, the profitability of the chemical industry showed signs of recovery: the median year-on-year increase in operating profits was 4%. Among the companies for which year-on-year data is available, 49 saw an increase in operating profit, 38 saw a decrease, while Shin-Etsu Chemical remained unchanged. This trend reversed the downward trend in the industry seen in 2023 (a 25% drop in the median) and 2022 (a 2% drop in the median). Companies such as BASF are addressing environmental challenges through measures such as cost reduction (saving 1 billion euros in 2024). Data shows that the proportion of capital expenditure and R&D investment among the companies on the list remains stable; for companies at the median level, capital expenditure and R&D investment account for 8% and 2% of their sales respectively, in line with historical averages. However, companies such as Dow and LyondellBasell have announced that they will reduce capital expenditures by 2025.