Huawei was ranked the most innovative company in China, followed by Alibaba and Xiaomi, in a list published by Fortune China.

The Chinese-language edition of Fortune released its ranking of "China's most innovative companies for 2018" on Wednesday after surveying 359 companies, including many of China's top 500 companies and the country's firms in the world's top 500. The survey was done in partnership with the consultancy firm A.T. Kearney.

The list highlighted dozens of innovative companies in sectors as diverse as telecommunications, smart homes, retail, manufacturing, logistics, banking, and healthcare.

China broke into the list of the world's top 20 most-innovative economies in July, taking the 17th place on the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Global Innovation Index. This is a substantial improvement over China's results in 2013, when it took the 35th spot in the rankings.

"China's rapid rise reflects a strategic direction set from the top leadership to developing world-class capacity in innovation and to moving the structural basis of the economy to more knowledge-intensive industries that rely on innovation to maintain competitive advantage," said WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry.