TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute raised eyebrows in Taiwan when it listed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) as No. 1 on its Hurun China 500 list of the most valuable private companies in China.
On Friday (Jan. 13), the Hurun Research Institute, which was founded by Luxembourg-born Rupert Hoogewerf, released its list of the top 500 non-state-owned enterprises ranked according to their market value or valuation. At the top of the list was Taiwan's TSMC, knocking off Tencent Holdings from the top spot it has held since 2020.
Trailing TSMC and Tencent were Alibaba, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), and Huawei, rounding out the top five. This was only the second year that TSMC has been on the list and in 2021 it ranked second.
According to Hurun, TSMC, with a market capitalization of US$404.3 billion (NT$12.25 trillion), surpassed Tencent's reported US$354.3 billion market capitalization. The Chinese-language press release then incorrectly described TSMC as the "most valuable private enterprise in China."
Under the company's profile, Hurun lists TSMC's CEO as Mark Liu (劉德音) and describes its headquarters as being located in "Hsinchu, Taiwan, China."
Other Taiwanese companies on the list include Hon Hai Precision (Foxconn) at No. 19, MediaTek at No. 22, Chunghwa Telecom at No. 41, Formosa Petrochemical at No. 45, Fubon Financial Holding at No. 58, Formosa Plastics at No. 83, and Formosa Chemicals and Fire at No. 108.
Taiwanese netizens on the popular online forum Professional Technology Temple (PTT) poked fun at the Chinese list:
"China has won again, and semiconductors have broken through the blockade of U.S. imperialism."
"Things produced by a Chinese company that cannot be used in China."
"Laughing to death, Taiwan is the fiercest on the whole list."
"China's No. 1 was taken away by Taiwan, are you kidding?"
"1.4 billion big country lost to 23 million small country."
"Then you might as well count Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla as Chinese companies as well."