The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. [1] The list includes publicly held companies, along with privately held companies for which revenues are publicly available. The concept of the Fortune 500 was created by Edgar P. Smith, a Fortune editor, and the first list was published in 1955. [2] [3] The Fortune 500 is more commonly used than its subset Fortune 100 or superset Fortune 1000. [4]
The Fortune 500, created by Edgar P. Smith, was first published in 1955. [2] The original top ten companies were General Motors, Jersey Standard, U.S. Steel, General Electric, Esmark, Chrysler, Armour, Gulf Oil, Mobil, and DuPont. [5]
The original Fortune 500 was limited to companies whose revenues were derived from manufacturing, mining, and energy exploration. At the same time, Fortune published companion "Fortune 50" lists of the 50 largest commercial banks (ranked by assets), utilities (ranked by assets), life insurance companies (ranked by assets), retailers (ranked by gross revenues) and transportation companies (ranked by revenues). Fortune magazine changed its methodology in 1994 to include service companies. With the change came 291 new entrants to the famous list including three in the Top 10. [6] There is a lag in creating the list, so for example, the 2019 Fortune 500 is based on each company's financial years ending in late 2018 (most commonly, on December 31), or early 2019.[ citation needed ]
As of 2020, the Fortune 500 companies represent approximately two-thirds of the United States' gross domestic product with approximately $14.2 trillion in revenue, $1.2 trillion in profits, and $20.4 trillion in total market value. These revenue figures also account for approximately 18% of the gross world product. The companies collectively employ a total of 29.2 million people worldwide, or nearly 0.4% of the world's total population. [7]
The following is the list of top 20 companies. [8]
Rank | Company | State | Industry | Revenue in USD |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Walmart | Arkansas | General merchandisers | $611.2 billion |
2 | Amazon | Washington | Internet service and retailing | $513.9 billion |
3 | ExxonMobil | Texas | Petroleum refining | $413.6 billion |
4 | Apple | California | Technology | $394.2 billion |
5 | UnitedHealth Group | Minnesota | Health care: insurance and managed care | $324.1 billion |
6 | CVS Health | Rhode Island | Health care: pharmacy and other services | $322.4 billion |
7 | Berkshire Hathaway | Nebraska | Insurance: property and casualty (stock) | $302 billion |
8 | Alphabet | California | Internet services and retailing | $282.8 billion |
9 | McKesson | Texas | Wholesalers: health care | $263.9 billion |
10 | Chevron Corporation | California | Energy, oil and gas | $246.2 billion |
11 | Cencora | Pennsylvania | Wholesalers: health care | $238.5 billion |
12 | Costco | Washington | Wholesalers | $226.95 billion |
13 | Microsoft | Washington | Technology | $198.2 billion |
14 | Cardinal Health | Ohio | Healthcare | $181.364 billion |
15 | Cigna | Connecticut | Managed care, insurance | $180.5 billion |
16 | Marathon Petroleum | Ohio | Petroleum | $180 billion |
17 | Phillips 66 | Texas | Energy, oil and gas | $175.7 billion |
18 | Valero Energy | Texas | Energy, oil and gas | $171.1 billion |
19 | Ford Motor Company | Michigan | Automotive | $158 billion |
20 | The Home Depot | Georgia | Retail | $157.4 billion |
This is the list of the top 18 states with the most companies within the Fortune 500 as of 2021. [9]
Rank | State | Companies |
---|---|---|
1 | California | 53 |
New York | 53 | |
3 | Texas | 49 |
4 | Illinois | 28 |
5 | Ohio | 25 |
6 | Pennsylvania | 24 |
7 | Virginia | 22 |
8 | Florida | 20 |
9 | Georgia | 19 |
10 | Massachusetts | 18 |
Minnesota | 18 | |
12 | Michigan | 17 |
13 | New Jersey | 16 |
14 | Connecticut | 14 |
15 | North Carolina | 12 |
16 | Colorado | 10 |
Missouri | 10 | |
Tennessee | 10 |
Fortune is an American global business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, a global business media company. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The magazine competes with Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek in the national business magazine category and distinguishes itself with long, in-depth feature articles.
The Fortune 1000 are the 1,000 largest American companies ranked by revenues, as compiled by the American business magazine Fortune. It only includes companies which are incorporated or authorized to do business in the United States, and for which revenues are publicly available. The Fortune 500 is the subset of the list that is its 500 largest companies.
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The FT Global 500 is an annual snapshot of the world's largest companies to show how corporate fortunes have changed in the past year, highlighting relative performance of countries and sectors. The companies are ranked by market capitalization. The greater the stock market value of a company, the higher its ranking. Market cap is the share price multiplied by the number of shares issued.
The Fortune Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by Fortune magazine.
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