Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, commonly called NTT, was the world’s largest company by market capitalization at the end of 1989.
NTT’s position reflected Japan’s extraordinary asset and stock-market boom during the late 1980s. The former national telecommunications monopoly had been privatized through a major public share offering in 1987, creating enormous investor interest in its stock.
At the end of the decade, Japanese companies dominated global market-capitalization rankings. NTT’s valuation was linked to the country’s large equity and property bubbles, which later collapsed. Its market value subsequently fell sharply as Japanese asset prices declined and the telecom sector changed.
NTT is sometimes confused with Japan’s best-known manufacturers, including Toyota or Sony. Those companies were globally prominent, but the 1989 market-capitalization distinction belonged to the telecommunications operator. NTT later reorganized into regional and long-distance businesses before becoming today’s NTT Group.