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who are the names that move the country’s economy

April 10, 2026 by usatoday24

The size of a company is, ultimately, a matter of perspective. For example, Inditex worth more in the stock market than any other Spanish company, but Repsol far surpasses it if what we look at is its income. On the other hand, Mercadona, without being listed in any index, employs more people in Spain than any large multinational based in the country. They are three different data that return three business maps that barely overlap, but together they form the business reality of Spain and about how the Spanish economy is built, revealing which sectors generate wealth for investorswhich ones move the most money and which are those companies that really move the employment needle in our country. The Top 10 companies of the IBEX35 The most common when we talk about large companies is to go to the IBEX35, the Spanish stock ranking which does not measure how much a company invoices or how many people it employs, but rather how much investors trust in your future. With that criterion, Inditex leads the list with a wide difference. At the end of March 2026, after publishing its annual resultsits stock market value was around 163,500 million euros, although in December 2025 it reached 175,155 million, its historical maximum. At that time, investment bank Jefferies revised upwards its target price for the share, which would imply a value greater than 200,000 million euros. Inditex’s capitalization advantage over the rest of the companies does not come from your sales volumebut of what the company founded by Amancio Ortega win with every euro you sell. In its fiscal year of 2025, the textile company obtained a record net profit of 6,220 million, 6% more than the previous year. This explains why large banks, such as Santander, BBVA or CaixaBank and energy companies such as Iberdrola or Endesa, with larger business figures, are left behind on the stock market. In 2025, by first time in historyfive Spanish companies exceeded 100,000 million euros on the stock market at the same time. Despite this, the index continues to be dominated by banks and electricity companies. However, sectors with a very important presence in the daily lives of Spaniards (such as the food industry, hospitality, automotive) barely have a presence in this index. Largest companies in Spain by turnover When the criterion is not investor confidence, but the total income that a company generates, the map turns upside down. The oil, gas and electricity companies They occupy the first positions because they buy and sell enormous quantities of raw materials, although what they keep as profit is a relatively small part of that figure. In this case, Repsol is the clearest example. In 2025, the fall in the price of oil, with a barrel of Brent falling 14.5% to $69.1 on average, took its toll. His operating result It fell 12.2%, to 5,312 million euros, although the final net profit rose 8.1%, to 1,899 million. That is, billing is not the same as entering. The big surprise from the list of companies with the highest turnover in Spain It’s Mercadona. Without being listed on the stock market and with hardly any presence in the financial debate, the Valencian chain founded by Juan Roig closed 2025 with 41,858 million euros in sales (8% more) and a net profit of 1,729 million (25% more). These figures have left Mercadona with 28.5% of market share in food in Spain, six tenths above 2024. Juan Roig qualified the “historical” exercise. Inditex, on the other hand, despite being the most powerful company in market capitalization, remains in a middle position in the income ranking. Largest companies in Spain by number of employees There is a tendency to think that a large company also needs a large workforce, something that large technology companies also insist on denying month and month with their large rounds of layoffs. In fact, the proof of nine for this theory is that the list of largest companies in Spain for the employment they generate subverts the order again. The company that hires the most people in Spain is neither the largest on the stock market nor the one with the most turnover: it is Santander Bank and all the personnel it employs in the operations management area. More than 198,400 employees, despite the cuts to your workforce of branches. Mercadona closed 2025 with 110,000 workers between Spain and Portugal and that year raised salaries of its entire workforce 8.5%. The most striking contrast in the ranking is the one between the extremes with Repsol, which heads the billing list, is located at the bottom of the employment list since its workforce is around 25,000 people thanks to the high level of automation of its activity. Inditex or ACS need staff five or six times larger than Repsol to function due to the nature of their activity. The difference between selling clothes or build roads and extract oil or distribute electricity, explains why the impact on employment of these companies has nothing to do with their weight on the stock market or income. The largest companies in Spain by autonomous community Reading the business map of Spain by autonomous community reveals something that economic or national lists tend to hide: the country’s economy is more decentralized than it seems, and many of the companies that lead the economy or employment in their region are not even listed on the stock market or are those that obtain the most profits. Autonomous Community Company Sector Billing approx. 2025 Madrid Repsol Energy and oil €76.3 billion the Basque Country Iberdrola Electrical energy €45,546 M Com. Valencian Mercadona Food distribution €41,858 M Galicia Inditex Textile retail €39,864 M Cantabria Santander Bank Banking €135,000 M Catalonia seat Automotive €12,000 M Aragon Stellantis Spain Automotive €4,159 M Navarre Volkswagen Navarra Automotive €12,000 M Castile and León Renault Spain Automotive €10,000 M Andalusia Airbus Spain Aeronautics and defense €73,420 M Asturias ArcelorMittal Spain Iron and steel industry €3,749 M Murcia The Well Feeding €2,000 … Read more

China brought humanoid robots to the country’s biggest television show: it made them practice kung-fu with millimeter precision

February 17, 2026 by usatoday24

Every year, hundreds of millions of people in China sit in front of the television to watch the Spring Festival Gala, recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the most watched annual program on the planet. It is not only a music and dance show, but also a showcase where the country decides what image it wants to project of itself. In this scenario of maximum visibility, the presence of humanoid robots ceases to be a simple technological curiosity and begins to function as a public declaration about the place that innovation occupies in the national narrative. What happened there was not just an artistic number, but a clear clue as to where the Asian giant is looking when it thinks about its technological future. Kung fu, choreography and coordination. To present their robots to millions of spectators, the organizers turned to a deeply recognizable symbol: martial arts. In the CCTV broadcast available on YouTube We can see robots using traditional weapons such as swords and nunchucks, as well as doing tricks and jumping from trampolines, always in sequences shared with human performers. The choice of kung fu provided more than just visual spectacularity, it can also be interpreted as a close way of reading technological advancement within a tradition known to the public. The magnitude of the event. The Spring Festival Gala has been broadcast since 1983 and is an inseparable part of the New Year celebration in hundreds of millions of homes. Reuters also describes it as an event comparable, in terms of media scale, to the American Super Bowl, capable of concentrating popular culture, political message and industrial ambition in a single night. What appears in that scenario entertains and, at the same time, projects a message and indicates priorities. A gateway for the industry. Behind the staging there were specific names and a visible strategy. They participated in the gala companies known in the West such as Unitree, but others less known such as MagicLab, Galbot and Noetix. The immediate precedent helps to understand the moment: Unitree’s robot performance in the previous edition went viral and, in a way, brought this technology closer to the general public. So the idea of betting on a similar show again is reasonable. From the stage to the factory. The public display of these systems fits with a line of industrial policy that places robotics and AI at the center of the next Chinese manufacturing stage. In recent years we have seen how the Asian giant has invested heavily in this sector. According to OmdiaChina accounted for around 90% of the nearly 13,000 humanoid robots shipped worldwide last year, a global shipping metric that does not go unnoticed. Morgan Stanley also projects that Chinese sales could exceed 28,000 units this year, which would point to a notable expansion phase. In Xataka There are people sharing their court cases with AI. The problem is when a judge considers the conversations as evidence In the end, what was seen on that stage went beyond well-executed choreography. Behind each movement appeared a country narrative that combines technological ambition, industrial policy and cultural projection in the same television image. The question is no longer whether these robots can perform in front of millions of people, but rather how much their presence will grow in the coming years and into what spaces of daily life they will end up integrating. For now, its massive presence is destined for this type of spectacle. Images | CCTV In Xataka | While technology companies dispense with juniors to replace them with AI, IBM is doing the opposite: catching bargains (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news China brought humanoid robots to the country’s biggest television show: it made them practice kung-fu with millimeter precision was originally published in Xataka by Javier Marquez .

Mexico hoped that the Mayan Train would change the country’s economy. It is not convincing either tourists or locals

December 8, 2025 by usatoday24

Their locomotives started between promises of wealth generationemployment and progress, but almost two years after its first inauguration he Mayan Train (one of the most ambitious projects of former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador) is far from the expectations of its promoters. It does not seem to be arousing special interest among tourists. Nor among the locals. In fact The Country just revealed a figure that gives an idea of the extent to which it has started with modest results: it moves 5% of the expected demand. The big question is… Why? What is the Mayan Train? One of López Obrador’s star projects and probably one of the most ambitious infrastructures developed in recent years in Mexico. He Mayan Train It is a railway circuit of more than 1,500 km that crosses Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, states located in the southeast, where some of the poorest regions of the country are located. Is it operational? Yes. After a construction marked by the controversychanges and a billion dollar investment which multiplied the initial budget, the trains began to circulate almost two years ago, although they were launched in a phased manner. In December 2023 A smiling López Obrador participated in the inaugural route on the Campeche-Cancún section. A year later, with Sheinbaum at the head of the Government, the implementation of the rest of routesincluded the lastbetween Campeche and the Chetumal airport. To celebrate and give an extra push to the structure, the Executive launched a tourist package especially to attract users for Christmas. Why is it news now? Because things don’t seem to be going especially well for the Mayan Train. This is what the revealed data by The Countrywhich claims to have accessed a report from the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) which confirms that the start of the service has not aroused the expected interest. During its first year of operations, it transported an average of 3,200 passengers daily. The initial forecasts were for this figure to be around 74,000, which did not even reach 5% of what was expected. The reporters who write the report from Mexico they assure that in the middle of high season it is not unusual to find trains that run almost empty in some sections and that at the stations it is common to come across more guards and cleaning employees than visitors. When talking to tourists who visit the region, some admit that they had not heard of the Mayan Train. What is the cause of this puncture? The million dollar question. And it is not easy to answer it. The testimonies collected by The Country They suggest that the train has not yet managed to catch on in either of the two markets in which it should attract passengers: domestic and international. It does not convince locals to travel through the southeast of Mexico, but neither does it convince foreign tourists who want to get to know the region. The reason is a combination of economic, logistical, cultural factors and habits that are difficult to change. If we talk about locals, the Mayan Train loses appeal for a simple reason: the location of the stations. The military company that operates it offers them discounts, but they must add the transportation price to get to the terminal to the ticket price. “The train to my town is far away. If I wanted to travel by train, I would basically have to spend twice as much. To go to Mérida I take the bus, which is more direct and cheaper,” explains a tour guide. Added to this is the deep-rooted use of other means of transport, such as the bus itself, motorcycles or taxis. And what about tourists? Despite the efforts to establish the service among foreign tourists, the Mayan Train does not seem to be succeeding in that market niche either. The visitors they keep coming to the Yucatan Peninsula, but their travel depends largely on travel companies and their itineraries, often agreed with bus companies and hoteliers. Although users highlight that trains are generally comfortable and safe and has been invested Already in the promotion of the service, there are still tourists who come to the Yucatán without having heard not even talk about the Mayan Train. Others do not quite see its advantages over traditional alternatives, such as renting a car to move freely or paying for tours in advance. Why is it important? For several reasons. To begin with, because the Mayan Train has not been just an ambitious project. It has also been marked by controversy. Recently National Geographic published a report in which he explains how its implementation has polarized part of Mexican society, with positions divided between those who believe it will help energize the region and those who focus on the impact it has had on the environment. Beyond this debate about the pros and cons of the train, what is undeniable is that the project has cost a lot more than initially planned. In 2023 the BBC network assured that from the between 120,000 and 150,000 million Mexican pesos that were initially spoken of, it went to nearly 500,000 million. This great investment effort was accompanied by promises of its economic return. What is expected from the train? “It is a magnum opus, we are not exaggerating if we say that there is no one like it in the world today,” stood out two years ago, during his inauguration, López Obrador. And at the time it was even proposed that the train would help encourage tourism and employment in some of the most impoverished regions of Mexico, with a project that, in addition to the railway, includes museums, hotels, archaeological zones and hotels. In 2020, a UN-Habitat study even suggested that it would help lift people out of poverty. 1.1 million of people. What does the Government say? He claims that the start-up of the train has not been bad. In summer the Government assured that the service … Read more

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