Alibaba is one of the hottest companies right now, in China and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and as its market capitalization continues to grow, its sizing up against some of the largest companies in the world.

Currently Alibaba has a $285 billion market capitalization, but this could increase to $300 billion in the next few weeks, after Alibaba surpassed its own projections on China's Singles Day.

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This puts Alibaba just behind Johnson & Johnson - a multi-national medical company - currently sitting on a $305 billion valuation. Other companies ahead of Alibaba include: Apple, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Google and Berkshire Hathaway.

Right now Alibaba is already ahead of Wal-Mart, the largest retail company in the U.S., with even more high revenue operations in Europe and Latin America. It currently has a $254 billion valuation.

Facebook is far behind Alibaba, with a valuation just peaking over $100 billion. This is not as surprising, considering Facebook's primary revenue comes from advertising, currently only available on the social network.

General Electric might be more surprising however, with a valuation of $265 billion it sits $20 billion behind Alibaba. General Electric is the conglomerate behind hundreds of companies, with over 300,000 employees and revenue of over $150 billion, it has over 10 times the employees and 15 times the revenue.

Alibaba is also valued higher than JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup, the four largest banks in the U.S. Again, all four banks employ almost ten times the workforce and have over five times the revenue of Alibaba.

What makes Alibaba so highly valued? Its early dominance in the Chinese e-commerce and its continued efforts to control everything paid for digitally. All of the companies listed behind Alibaba might be larger, but they've been doing pretty much the same thing as they did 10 years ago, while Alibaba continues to look for new opportunities.

TagsWalmart, General Electric