Fortune is out with its latest Global 500 today ranking the world’s largest 500 companies by revenue and Apple has once again landed at #15 on the list. Apple comes in behind #1 Wal-mart, a long list of petroleum companies, Volkswagen, Toyota, and #13 Samsung.
After a bumpy start to 2014, Apple’s stock finished the year up 40%, adding nearly $200 billion to the company’s market value. A product pipeline that’s gotten Apple fanboys lining up all over again has certainly helped reenergize revenue growth: In addition to unveiling new categories like Apple Pay and Apple Watch, the company launched the iPhone 6, selling a record-breaking 10 million units in the first three days. As CEO Tim Cook recently told investors: “It’s tough to find something in the numbers not to like.” The normally low-profile Cook is breaking new ground in other ways too–in October, 2014 he came out as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
In Fortune’s calculations, which account for total revenues for the fiscal year that ended before March 31, 2015, Apple came in with almost $183 billion in revenue, compared to around $195 billion for Samsung and $485 billion for #1 on the list, Walmart. Apple, however, comes in at #2 on the list when filtering by profit with $39.5 billion compared to $44.7 billion for the #1 company by profit, Industrial & Commer. Bank of China. Other tech companies coming in behind Apple for profit include Microsoft at #8 with $22 billion and Samsung at #9 with $21.9 billion in profit.
The new Fortune 500 Global list follows Apple’s Q3 2015 earnings report yesterday where the company reported record revenue for several products, hinted at over $1 billion in Apple Watch sales, and crossed the $200 billion in cash mark for the first time.
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It is all about what you take home or put in the back at the end of the day. Fortune needs to revamp their rating system to reflect that.
But… Don’t forget that a huge portion of the revenue that is not company profit was also taken home and put in the bank by employees as salaries and bonuses, plus shareholders as dividends. Revenue has its place as a metric, even if looking at the number alone without context is misleading.
Not really surprising, Samsung is way too huge compared to Apple, maybe if Samsung’s sell is still falling behind Apple’s sell regarding smartphones then Apple could take the lead after 5 to 10 years or a little more but Samsung has many departments that makes money probably if Apple succeed with the automobile division there will be a difference…
Shamesung has 13 companies and electronics is one of those. Adding to that, electronic company is selling TVs, wash machines, microwaves, 100 category of mobiles, etc. while Apple has
Watch, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Macs.
Even though, Apple in front when it comes to profitability. Qualitative vs Quantitative
Is this Samsung Electronics or the entire conglomerate that includes all kinds of industries Apple doesn’t play in?
All of Samsung. The Electronics division alone would be no match.
Wrong, only Samsung Electronics.
Samsung Electronics is bigger than Apple as they produce TVs, semiconductors, displays, appliances, phones, computers, etc.
The conglomerate would add ~$100B, but it’s not really a company but a collection of 50+ companies.