Methodology for the Fortune Asia Future 30 (2024)

To identify the Asia Future 30, the BCG Henderson Institute examined around 700 publicly traded companies across the Asia-Pacific region with at least $10 billion in market value at year-end 2022, or $10 billion in revenue through 2022. 

Companies were assessed on their market potential—defined as expected future growth as determined by financial markets. This was assessed by calculating the proportion of their market value that is not attributable to the earnings stream from their existing business model.

We also considered a company’s capacity to deliver against this potential based on 19 factors, weighted by a machine learning algorithm for their ability to predict growth over the following five years. These fall into four categories:

Strategy

Our A.I. algorithm relies on natural language processing to detect a company’s strategic orientation from its annual reports. We also assess a company’s commitment to sustainability from its governance rating by Arabesque, a data-analytics firm.

Technology and investments

A company’s capital expenditures and R&D (as a percentage of sales) measure its investment in the future. Technology advantage is assessed through the growth in a company’s citation-weighted patent portfolio and that portfolio’s digital intensity (share in computing and electronic communication). To account for external innovation, a company’s portfolio of start-up investments and acquisitions is compared with best-performing global venture capital funds.

People

The value of youthful and focused leadership is assessed by the age and stability of a company’s executives and directors and the size of its board. The company’s diversity is assessed by its share of employees and of management that is female, as well as the geographic backgrounds of its directors.

Structure

A company’s age and (revenue-based) size are correlated with vitality loss. But three-year and six-month sales growth are predictive of future growth as signs of revitalization.

Companies with negative cash flow from operations over the prior three years on average, indicating elevated performance risk, were excluded from this list.