Dominant Apple remains atop Fortune's 'most admired' list for 9th straight year

Apple remained atop Fortune's poll for the ninth straight year in the latest rankings, issued on Friday. Apple held off No. 2 finisher Alphabet, and third-place-ranked Amazon, who have have all consistently ranked in the top three.

"There's a new AAA standard in corporate America: the one-two-three punch of Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon," senior editor Christopher Tkaczyk said. "For the fourth time, our list of the 'World's Most Admired Companies Top 50 All-Stars' is led by a trio of tech giants under 40 years old."

The rankings are done in collaboration with a survey from the Korn Ferry Hay Group. A total of 652 companies from 30 countries, representing the largest in their respective industries, were included in the poll.

A total of 4,000 executives, directors and securities analysts were surveyed to rank the qualified companies, providing the 10 they admired the most.

Rounding out the rest of the top ten, in order, were Berkshire Hathaway, Walt Disney, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, FedEx, Nike, and General Electric. Other tech companies among the top 50 include Facebook at No. 14 and Netflix at No. 19.