Apple ranked as most profitable US company by far on newest Fortune 500 ranking

Apple once again has claimed the top spot in global profits, according to Fortune's annual ranking of U.S. companies shaping the world.

In Fortune magazine's 63rd composition of the list of Fortune 500 companies, Apple has seized the third spot in revenue, behind only Walmart and Berkshire Hathaway. However, ranked by profitability, the company destroys all challengers, reaping $45.7 billion in profit and handily dispatching second place J.P. Morgan Chase with $24.7 billion.

Walmart is far behind the pair, at 11th place with $13.6 billion in profit.

Other notable placements on the list overall are Alphabet at fifth for profits, and 27th for revenue, Microsoft at 28th place for profits and seventh for revenue, and Intel at 32nd for profit, and 16th for revenue.

Other newcomers to the list from tech industries are Hewlett Packard's return after a long absence at 59th for revenue, Tesla at 383, Nvidia at 387, Activision Blizzard at 406, and Adobe Systems at 443.

In total, Fortune 500 companies represent two-thirds of the U.S. GDP with $12 trillion in revenues, $890 billion in profits, $19 trillion in market value, and employ 28.2 million people worldwide.

Companies are ranked by total revenues for their respective fiscal years. Included in the survey are companies that are incorporated in the U.S. and operate in the U.S. and file financial statements. Excluded are private companies not filing with a government agency, companies incorporated outside the U.S., and companies consolidated by other companies that file with a government agency.

13 Comments

lkrupp 19 Years · 10521 comments

About 7 years ago

Time to break the tech companies up, even though they are not breaking the law, just getting too powerful it would seem.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/is-big-tech-too-powerful-ask-google.html

randominternetperson 8 Years · 3101 comments

"In total, Fortune 500 companies represent two-thirds of the U.S. GDP ... and employ 28.2 million people worldwide."

Interesting. Presumably from the US population of ~300 million, there are 150-200 million workers. So two thirds of GDP is created by < 28 million workers and the remaining one third is created by 120-200 million workers? Who knew that the biggest companies were so much more efficient than everyone else.

lkrupp said:

Time to break the tech companies up, even though they are not breaking the law, just getting too powerful it would seem.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/is-big-tech-too-powerful-ask-google.html

I'm not a big fan of Robert Reich, but the argument is that Google, Amazon and other may in fact be breaking the law (antitrust laws specifically) but are shielded from scrutiny thanks to their political clout.
His argument that "the little guy" has no way to break into the market is rather silly since companies like Facebook, Uber, Tesla, were able to grow from nothing to major firms in the blink of an eye. I wouldn't bet money on the proposition that Facebook will be the dominant social media platform 10 years from now. They could be or they could be this generation's AOL.

rezwits 17 Years · 856 comments

Where's the doomed comment?

carnegie 10 Years · 1082 comments

randominternetperson said:

"In total, Fortune 500 companies represent two-thirds of the U.S. GDP ... and employ 28.2 million people worldwide."
Interesting. Presumably from the US population of ~300 million, there are 150-200 million workers. So two thirds of GDP is created by < 28 million workers and the remaining one third is created by 120-200 million workers? Who knew that the biggest companies were so much more efficient than everyone else.

The total revenues of the Fortune 500 companies may be about equal to two-thirds of the U.S. GDP, but those revenues (or the production they represent) don't account for two-thirds of the U.S. GDP.

A great deal of those revenues (or the production they represent) aren't components of the U.S. GDP. A lot of those revenues are associated with production in other parts of the world. And whether we're using an expenditure method or an income method to calculate U.S. GDP, a lot of them wouldn't (effectively) be included in that calculation. For instance, using an income method we'd be considering corporate profits rather than corporate revenues. And using an expenditure method we'd be looking at spending by U.S. consumers (as well as, e.g., U.S. government spending) rather than spending by consumers (and governments) throughout the world.

Also, there are currently a little over 150 million employed people in the United States. The participation rate (which includes unemployed people - those who want work and have been looking for it) is around 60%, but that's using a base of a little over 250 million people as it doesn't count people who are under 16, institutionalized, or in the military.