Asia's Most Admired Companies

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Expansive Plans

Consider, for instance, NHN. It's the top portal and search engine in South Korea, far ahead of Google (GOOG).

And like so many of the other companies on this year's list, NHN is branching out. It is now expanding its business to Japan. In that sense it's similar to Baidu.com (BIDU), the Beijing company that is the top search engine in China. Baidu also is crushing Google, with the American search giant a distant No. 2 in the Chinese market. And like NHN, Baidu earlier this year set up a subsidiary in Japan.

In tiny Singapore, the need to expand beyond the home market is more obvious than in a gigantic market like China or India. Both of the Singaporean companies on our list have been leading that push. Singapore Airlines is in negotiations to acquire a 25% stake in China Eastern, one of China's largest carriers. At the same time, the airline is expanding its reach through its subsidiary Tiger Air, a new, lower-cost carrier.

State-backed Singapore Telecom, meanwhile, already derives a big chunk of its profits from its Australian subsidiary, Optus. Now it's expanding in other parts of Asia. SingTel has a 30.8% stake in Bharti Airtel, one of the world's fastest-growing cellular carriers. And on June 28 the Singaporean company reached a deal to pay $758 million for a 30% stake in Warid Telecom International, one of Pakistan's top operators.

Old-Style Manufacturing

Another factor contributing to the popularity of the companies on BusinessWeek's list is technology leadership and innovation. Companies such as Infosys and Wipro (WIT) in India have well-established reputations as being top innovators in providing IT services for customers.

And as Korea's Posco (PKX) demonstrates, tech leadership pays off in old-style manufacturing, too. The Korean steelmaker inaugurated a new plant in May with a new type of technology that uses noncoking coal rather than the more expensive hard-coking coal favored by most steelmakers.

The Posco plant has "first-of-its kind technology," enthused Credit Suisse analysts Hocheol Kim and Seungwoo Hong in a June 21 research report. Thanks to that commitment to new technology, "the company has made a big step towards strengthening its global cost leadership," the two wrote, adding that Posco's tech advantage should come in handy as the company expands beyond Korea to India and other Asian countries.

See BusinessWeek.com's slide show for more of Asia's most admired companies.

Einhorn is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Hong Kong bureau .