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Fortune 500

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The July 24, 2006 issue of Fortune, featuring its Fortune 500 list

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]

History[edit]

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]

Methodology[edit]

The original Fortune 500 was limited to companies whose revenues were derived from manufacturing, mining, and energy exploration.[6] 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.[7]

Influence[edit]

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.[8]

Overview[edit]

The following is the list of top 20 companies.[9]

Fortune 500 list of 2023
Rank Company State Industry Revenue in USD
1 Walmart  Arkansas General merchandisers $611.2 billion
2 Amazon  Washington Internet services 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

Breakdown by state[edit]

This is the list of the top 18 states with the most companies within the Fortune 500 as of 2021.[10]

Breakdown by state
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

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Fortune 500". Fortune. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b "Edgar Smith, 69, Dies; Retired Time Executive". The New York Times. October 12, 1989. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
  3. ^ "1955 Full list". Fortune. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
  4. ^ Williams, Sean (June 4, 2015). "Fortune 100: Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About This Popular Annual Ranking". The Motley Fool. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
  5. ^ "What happened to the first Fortune 500?". Fortune. Retrieved March 24, 2017.
  6. ^ Semczuk, Nina (2024-03-13). "What Are Fortune 500 Companies?". Bankrate. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
  7. ^ Groves, Martha (April 26, 1995). "Service Now Counts with Fortune 500". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 12, 2017.
  8. ^ Klooster, Alison (May 18, 2020). "FORTUNE Announces 2020 FORTUNE 500 List, Launches First Ever "History Of The FORTUNE 500" Data Analytics Visualization Site With Partner Qli". Fortune. Retrieved October 1, 2020 – via Cision PR Newswire.
  9. ^ "Fortune 500 List of Companies 2022". Fortune. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
  10. ^ "Visualize the Fortune 500". Fortune. Retrieved November 29, 2021.

External links[edit]