Good morning. Volkswagen has topped the Fortune 500 Europe for a third straight year, even as the auto industry it leads gets squeezed by tariffs and Chinese competition. The automaker’s revenue still climbed 3.4%, to more than $363 billion, in the fourth edition of Fortune’s ranking of Europe’s largest companies by revenue.
The combined revenues of the companies on the list hit a record high of $15.5 trillion this year. Profits rose 3% to just over $1 trillion, rebounding from a 5% decline in 2025.
Across the Fortune 500 Europe, margins have narrowed for two years running, falling to 6.5% from a high of 7.1% on the 2024 list—despite record revenue and profit growth. That’s consistent with stagflation pressures weighing on Europe’s corporate sector, Guido Cozzi, a macroeconomics professor at the University of St. Gallen, told Fortune’s Sam Birchall.
