SINGAPORE - Six companies from Singapore have made it to this year's Forbes Asia's "Best Under A Billion" list, three more than in 2014.
The companies include Cordlife Group, Hock Lian Seng, Pacific Century Regional Developments, Wee Hur, Q & M Dental Group and Silverlake Axis.
The "Best Under A Billion" list honors 200 leading public companies in the Asia Pacific region with annual revenue between US$5 million (S$6.7 million) and US$1 billion, have positive net income and have been publicly traded for at least a year.
Those who made it to the list were selected from a global pool of over 17,000 companies and were screened on sales growth and earnings growth in the past 12 months and over three years. They were also chosen for having the strongest five-year return on equity.
According to Forbes Asia, 123 out of 200 companies are new on the list.
China and Hong Kong trump the list with 84 companies between them. As in 2014, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies from China feature strongly on the list. They include Da An Gene, which sells biomedicine, gene diagnostic products and conducts research on MERS virus testing kits; and By-health, China's largest retailer of dietary supplements.
The second largest group of companies on the list comes from Taiwan, with a total of 36, five more than in 2014. This includes HIM International Music, the record label behind mandopop girl group S.H.E.
South Korea follows after with 17 companies while India and Malaysia are tied at 11. Japan failed to make the top five countries with a total of only eight companies on the list, a drop from de15 last year.