Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei snagged the top spot on this year’s list of the top 500 Chinese private companies. Huawei posted a total annual revenue of 359 billion yuan, while Lenovo, the 2015 champion, was pushed down to No. 4, after electronics retailer Suning and textile firm Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group.

Other big names closely follow Lenovo. Property giant Vanke and real estate and entertainment conglomerate Dalian Wanda are ranked 10th and sixth respectively. The list was published on Aug. 25 by the All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce (ACFIC).

This year’s Top 500 list raised the bar for inclusion to a total annual revenue of at least 10 billion yuan, up from last year’s 9.5 billion yuan. The total assets of the 500 companies on the list totaled 17.3 trillion yuan in 2015, with a growth rate 25.16 percent.

The list also indicated a change in industrial structure, as the number of companies in service sectors has now seen several years of consecutive growth, from 130 in 2014 to 137 in 2015. Companies in service sectors contributed 51.69 percent of the total annual revenue of all the top 500 companies in 2015. This is also the first time that the service sectors contributed more than secondary industries.

Meanwhile, the list saw an increasing number of overseas investment, with total foreign investment adding up to $28.86 billion. There were 1,328 Overseas projects in 2015, up 25.16 percent.

As for the new champion of the Top 500, experts credited Huawei’s heavy investment in research and development, which far outpaces that of its peers. In 2014, Huawei spent 40.8 billion yuan on R&D, or 14.2 percent of its total sales revenue. The figure grew to around 50 billion in 2015.

"Some cities, even provincial regions, could not reach that number. It is also hard to achieve in many companies," an industry insider was quoted as saying on thepaper.cn.