China's private sector keeps expanding in 2026, while more tech manufacturers climb into the top ranks

The private sector's share of China's 100 largest listed companies by market value continued to grow in 2026, reaching 41 percent by mid-year. Far more striking was the unprecedented turnover in the list: Of the 100 companies, 27 had never appeared in it before.

The PIIE tracker, updated twice a year, adopts a strict definition of China's private sector, which we label nonpublic enterprises (NPEs), limiting it to firms with less than 10 percent state ownership. All others we label state sector, but we distinguish between mixed-ownership enterprises (MOEs), in which the state holds between 10 and 50 percent, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in which the state owns a majority. The tracker reflects the relative shares of aggregate market capitalization among the top 100 mainland Chinese companies ranked by market value, regardless of whether they are listed in China or overseas. As such, it filters out general market trends that affect private and state firms equally. The methodology is detailed in our 2022 PIIE Working Paper.

Of the 27 newcomers to the list, 26 are little-known upstream suppliers of chips, components, materials, and equipment for semiconductors, advanced electronics, optical communications, and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. They include, for example, semiconductor chip designer GigaDevice Semiconductor, China's 26th-largest listed company by market capitalization at mid-2026; precision hardware manufacturer Suzhou Dongshan Precision Manufacturing, ranked 34th; semiconductor equipment manufacturer Advanced Microfabrication Equipment China, or AMEC, ranked 36th; and electronic circuit materials supplier SYTECH, ranked 37th. Viewed through the ownership lens, most of these new high-tech manufacturers are NPEs and MOEs.

Including other firms that had previously appeared in the top 100, such high-tech manufacturers accounted for a remarkable 37—more than a third—of China's 100 largest listed companies by mid-2026 and 27.5 percent of their aggregate market value. By contrast, at the end of 2025, only 10 such companies were in the top 100, representing less than one-tenth of aggregate market capitalization.

While these new tech champions entered China's commanding heights, some corporate stalwarts in more established sectors were pushed out of the latest ranking, such as Aluminum Corporation of China (Chalco), China Railway Rolling-stock Corporation (CRRC), China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), China Unicom, Everbright Bank, Geely, Haier, and Sany.

Another notable development is the growing prominence of MOEs in China's top 100. Over the previous five years, MOEs accounted for a fairly stable 12 to 15 percent of the aggregate market value of the top 100 companies. By mid-2026, their share had risen to nearly 20 percent. Of the 25 MOEs in the latest ranking, 10 are high-tech manufacturers, compared with only three MOEs in that sector at the end of 2025. The growing presence of mixed ownership among China's most highly valued tech manufacturers reflects Beijing's industrial policies that leverage state capital to stimulate technological development in strategically important sectors.

The influx of high-tech manufacturers into the top ranks of Chinese listed companies mirrors a recent global trend in which investors have seen comparatively greater promise in suppliers of AI infrastructure and hardware, for which demand is immediate and tangible, than in developers of AI models and applications, whose commercial returns remain uncertain. The resulting valuations may ultimately turn out to be a flash in the pan, driven by the global market frenzy about AI. That said, the newcomers are overwhelmingly mature industrial players rather than untested startups. Nearly all of them, 25 out of 27, were founded more than 15 years ago, in the heyday of China's reform and opening era. Even if their market value at mid-2026 turns out to be temporarily inflated, their rise is a vivid reminder of the continued vitality of China's high-tech manufacturing ecosystem.

Authors’ note: Earlier editions of the tracker contained duplicate entries for Li Auto and China Securities. These errors have been corrected in the latest update.