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.
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 made the Fortune 500 list for 37 years, ranking in the top 10 for the last seven years.
- 2019: 3rd
- 2018: 4th
- 2017: 3rd
- 2016: 3rd
- 2015: 5th
- 2014: 5th
- 2013: 6th
Other tech firms that made the list are Amazon (5th), Google parent company Alphabet (15th), and Microsoft (26th).
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.
