Fortune 500 Arabia showcases business diversification in Middle East

Good morning.

There’s a new Fortune list out this week—Fortune 500 Arabia—which ranks the top 500 companies in the Arab world by revenues. Top of the list—no surprise here —are the oil companies: Saudi Aramco, with $604 billion in revenues, is number one, and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, with $107 billion in revenues, is number two.

But the list also shows how diversified the region’s business has become. The top industry represented on the list is banking and insurance, accounting for 28% of the total. Real estate and energy each account for 7% of the list.  Saudi companies were 30% of the list, followed by the UAE with 17%, Egypt with 11% and Kuwait with 8%.

Fortune 500 Arabia is run by our partners at Majarra, and many of the companies on the list will be represented at the Fortune Global Forum in Abu Dhabi Nov. 27-29. It’s not too late to request an invite;  more information here.

And did you realize that L'Oréal was a tech company? CEO Nicolas Hieronimus is giving one of the keynotes at the CES in Las Vegas in January, and previewed some of the themes with Michal Lev-Ram on this week’s installment of our podcast Leadership Next.  An excerpt:

“Not only do we have very strong e-commerce capabilities all across the world, but we also have new (tech-enabled) ways to engage with our consumers. For example, you can try our products without going to the store. We acquired in 2018 a Canadian start-up that allows you, through augmented reality, to try on your phone lipstick shades, hair color shades, foundations, or do skin diagnosis. That’s one of the aspects of beauty tech we will be discussing more later.”

We are all tech companies now. You can listen to the full Leadership Next interview on Apple or Spotify.   Other news below.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com