2020 SIRASI: 33

SOUTH KOREA

(KS: 035420, 252 $)

Naver, which runs the biggest search engine in South Korea, has lately been focused on fast-growing businesses like fintech, cloud storage, and digital comics (its cartoon platform has nearly 70 million monthly users)—moves that helped it grow operating revenue 24% in the most recent quarter. The company is in the midst of merging its messaging app with SoftBank’s Z Holdings (formerly Yahoo Japan) in a deal slated to close next year.

Amazon

37 ABD / USA (AMZN, 3.099 $)

E-commerce and cloud-storage giant Amazon has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of changing consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its sales jumped 35% to more than $260 billion in the first nine months of 2020, as people stopped going to stores and spent more online. The company’s market-leading cloud-computing division, Amazon Web Services, has also benefited in 2020 as the hosting platform for everything from Netflix to Zoom.

Intercontinental Exchange

39 ABD / USA (ICE, 101 $)

The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange operates a range of regulated financial marketplaces for trading everything from agricultural commodities to credit derivatives. In February, ICE made a surprising $30-billion-plus takeover offer for online retailer eBay, but quickly abandoned the deal after investors expressed their skepticism by bidding down the stocks of both companies. Still, ICE’s share price has nearly doubled over the past five years.

Alibaba Group Holding

2020 SIRASI (RANK): 40

ÇİN / CHINA (BABA, 271 $)

Alibaba retained its majority share of China’s massive e-commerce market throughout the worst of the pandemic, and the behemoth still has room to grow. Live-streaming—in which brand representatives broadcast to viewers who can purchase items featured in the video— was key to its pandemic strategy. In February it removed service fees for new merchants on its live-streaming platform Taobao Live, and saw the number of new sellers spike 719% compared with the previous month. In April, Alibaba announced it will invest $28 billion in cloud-computing infrastructure over the next three years, a clear signal of its focus on international expansion.

Tencent Holdings

45 ÇİN / CHINA (HK: 700, 76 $)

Tencent has a dominant share in China’s gaming market— which surged during COVID-19 lockdowns in China—and owns super-app WeChat, which has 1.2 billion users. Together, Tencent’s operations constitute the largest online community in China. Growth in gaming helped boost Tencent’s sales 29% in the third quarter. But its stock fell from recent highs in early November after Beijing proposed new rules to prevent antitrust behavior by China’s tech giants.

FINTECH FINTECH

Adyen

6 HOLLANDA / NETHERLANDS (AS: ADYEN, 1.906 $)

Amsterdam-based Adyen has built a reputation as the go to payments provider for businesses that need to operate globally, with customers ranging from McDonald’s to Microsoft to Uber. It can process payments using hundreds of methods and currencies. Adyen uses its own payments infrastructure, combined with machine learning, to minimize chargebacks and fraud. It processed about $284 billion worth of payments in 2019, and experienced 23% growth in payment volumes in the first half of 2020 and a 27% increase in net revenue, despite the pandemic.

Square

9 ABD / USA (SQ, 196 $)

Square, which was once best known for its little white plug-in credit card swipers— as well as being Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s side hustle—has grown into a major force in payments and banking in its own right. With a stock price that has tripled so far in 2020, Square’s market value has surpassed that of Goldman Sachs. What has investors so revved up? Likely its shiny new banking license (approved in March) and its Cash App, a peer-to-peer payments and cryptocurrency-trading service whose rapid growth has made it a rival to PayPal’s Venmo. Next up: a possible acquisition of Credit Karma’s tax-preparation business.

PayPal

34 ABD / USA (PYPL, 193 $)

The former subsidiary of eBay has definitely come into its own in its past five years of independence. Poised to reap the benefits of consumers’ growing reliance on digital payments, PayPal has excelled during the coronavirus pandemic, growing revenues nearly 20% in the first three quarters of the year—exceeding even its average three-year growth rate of 18%. Now one of the largest small-business lenders, PayPal is also expanding its offerings to include buying and selling cryptocurrency, both through its flagship product and its peer-to-peer payments app, Venmo.

APPROACH WITH CAUTION

No company is problem-free, but some fly more red flags than others. From a big bet on COVID-19 drugs that may or may not pay off, to a booming business still plagued by misinformation, consider these two players high-risk, high-reward.

Celltrion

SOUTH KOREA (KS: 068270, 266 $)

The pandemic has pushed South Korea’s Celltrion to further expand beyond its core business of making “biosimilars,” or cheaper generic versions of name-brand “biologic” drugs and treatments. In October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for Celltrion’s rapid COVID-19 testing kit, Sampinute, which promises to deliver results within 10 minutes and with a 94% sensitivity rate. The company is also developing a COVID-19 antibody treatment, to reduce the severity of the coronavirus once patients are infected, and has received South Korean regulatory approval to begin Phase III clinical trials of the drug.

Facebook

50 ABD / USA (FB, 270 $)

Last but not least, the social media player’s underlying business remains strong. And new business opportunities continue to emerge: A global e-commerce strategy (including WhatsApp Pay) shows signs of promise, for example. Analysts project 17% to 20% future, long-term growth. At the same time, reputational risk is high—as is the very real threat of regulatory crackdowns across different regions, including the United States. Perhaps even more ominous, the Facebook core product is seeing declining engagement levels with younger demographics. In short: There is a reason the social network is on this list, but also a reason it comes in at No. 50.