Apple moves up one spot to number three in this year’s Fortune 500 list.
Apple has snagged the number three spot in the annual Fortune 500 list of the highest-revenue-generating companies that are based in the United States. Retailer Walmart and oil firm ExxonMobile took the first and second spots, respectively.
Apple’s finish is up one spot from last year’s rankings, finishing above billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway. The annual list ranked companies by their revenue in the 2018 fiscal year.
“Fortune 500 companies represent two-thirds of the U.S. GDP with $13.7 trillion [USD] in revenues, $1.1 trillion in profits, $22.6 trillion in market value, and employ 28.7 million people worldwide,” the company said in a statement.
Forbes also explains which companies qualify for a place on the list.
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 with a government agency. This includes private companies and cooperatives that file a 10-K or a comparable financial statement with a government agency, and mutual insurance companies that file with state regulators.
Included in the Fortune 500 are companies that are incorporated and operate in the U.S. and file financial statements with a government agency. Included in the top 10, in descending order, are Walmart, Exxon Mobile, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, United Health Group, McKesson, CVS Health, AT&T and AmerisourceBergen.
Fortune, on Apple:
Two thousand eighteen will be remembered as the year that Apple first achieved a market value of $1 trillion, as well as when growth in iPhones, Apple’s largest single product by far, began to slow. Before the introduction of the iPod — the iPhone’s precursor — Apple was a once-exciting computer maker. Now, only a retailer and an oil company are bigger. Its challenge: as consumers hang onto phones longer, Apple is repositioning itself as a services provider. Already iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud, and cuts from sales in its popular Apple Store generate billions of dollars of sales.
Apple has been a long-time fixture on the Fortune 500 list. It entered the top 10 in 2013 and has been a fixture ever since. In recent years, it has hovered around the number three spot. Last year, it fell to number four after ExxonMobile leapfrogged Apple and Berkshire Hathaway to secure the number 2 spot.
