Bharti, Infy, TCS, Wipro among world's top tech cos

Telecom player Bharti Airtel and IT firms Infosys, TCS and Wipro have made it to the list of 100 best performing technology companies in the world, compiled by American magazine BusinessWeek.

The 'Infotech 100' list for 2009, based on shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues, and revenue growth is topped by Amazon.Com for the second straight year.

Ranked at the sixth position, telecom giant Bharti Airtel leads the pack of Indian companies featured in the list. The three IT majors — Infosys, TCS and Wipro find a place in the top 50. Infosys is ranked 25, TCS is at the 30th spot and Wipro is placed at the 43rd position.

The "2009 ranking of the tops in tech showcases companies that managed to thrive even in the face of a bruising global recession," the magazine said.

At the second spot is Oracle followed by SAP (3), Inventec (4) and IBM (5).

Two American entities led by India-origin CEOs also find a place in the top 100. Francisco D'Souza-led Cognizant Technologies is ranked 51 while Adobe Systems headed by Shantanu Narayen has cornered the 99th spot.

Bharti Airtel is ahead of South African telecom entity MTN Group (12th rank), maker of Blackberry phones Research In Motion (14), technology giant Apple (19), software major Microsoft (22) and Google (37), among others.

According to the publication, the number of US companies in the list has shot up to 43 against 33 last year. There are five firms from China in the top 100.

BusinessWeek said that it combed the financial results of "tens of thousands of publicly traded businesses and ranked tech players on shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues, and revenue growth" to prepare the list. To qualify, the companies should have revenues of at least $500 million.

The magazine said that return on equity is the "net income available for shareholders divided by common equity, in native currency" while total return is the "return to shareholders, including dividends for the 12 months ended April 30, 2009".