One in five think Tesco is Britain's biggest company

Britons are still struggling to identify some of the FTSE 100's biggest names, as research suggests less than one in five people believe Tesco to be the biggest company in Britain.

A survey conducted by spread betting firm Spread Co shows that confusion still remains for the ordinary citizen with regard to the country's most significant publicly listed companies.

The survey showed 95% of respondents had heard of the five biggest companies in the London index, HSBC, British American Tobacco, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and GlaxoSmithKline.

However, 19% of people incorrectly believed that supermarket chain Tesco was the largest stock in the FTSE 100, despite not actually being in the top 10.

The study revealed a general trend of confusion with regard to knowledge about whether companies were publicly traded or not, a trend exacerbated by a lack of presence on high streets.

Britons "are very much influenced by the physical presence of companies when it comes to estimating their size, when in fact most of our biggest businesses would never be found on the High Street", said Spread Co's head of marketing and sales Shameer Sachdev.

The survey also showed that four out of the top 10 companies were correctly named by those in the research.

"They were certainly bang on with the oil majors BP and Royal Dutch Shell," added senior market strategist David Morrison. "But it looks like they overestimated the size and influence of the banking sector. No doubt this is due to the strong high street presence of Barclays and Lloyds despite branch closures as we increasingly do our banking online and via smartphones."

This was the Top 10 of the FTSE 100 as chosen by the respondents, along with its actual occupants:

1. Tesco (HSBC)
2. BP (British American Tobacco)
3. Barclays (Royal Dutch Shell A)
4. HSBC (BP)
5. BT Group (GlaxoSmithKline)
6. Royal Dutch Shell (Royal Dutch Shell B)
7. Lloyds Bank (Vodafone Group)
8. GlaxoSmithKline (AstraZeneca)
9. Marks and Spencer (Diageo)
10. Sainsbury's (Reckitt Benckiser Group)