Apple jumps 32 spots into Fortune 100

i agree with one of the comment that revenue without profit is waste of time to compare about. However its just the numbers..

How typical that the Windows-head droid morons are, as usual, bashing the most innovative company in the entire Tech sector: Apple. Not one of the tech companies ranked "ahead" of Apple can hold a candle to the superior quality of their products. The only reason that Windows is on 90% of the world's desktops is because Apple's Board fired Steve and Woz in the early '80s, and replaced them with John Scully of Pepsi fame, who was a great consumer marketer but didn't know diddly about how to market technology, despite having the most intuitive and user-friendly OS in the world (then AND now). So when Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway and others came knocking in the early '80s and asked to license the Mac OS, Scully greedily said no because he wanted to control the whole vertical market: hardware AND software. If Steve Jobs had still been running the company in those days, we'd live in a different world today where Mac has the majority of the desktop market due to it's superior performance, ease of use and airtight back end (NO viruses, malware, spyware, adware, etc., which plague Windows over and over and over again because their back end is like a screen door: any smart 14 year old kid can write and distribute a Windows-threatening virus in about 15 minutes. Which OS would YOU rather use?). But John Scully said "No" when the hardware makers came a-calling, so the world is the way it is. Windows is at 90% NOT because of market forces on an even playing field, and CERTAINLY not because it's a better OS, but because of one idiot who BRIEFLY ran Apple (Thank God the Board came to their senses and rehired Steve eventually) and said "No" to the most important question in desktop OS marketing history.

So BRAVO Apple for your well-deserved climb into the Fortune 100. Yes, their products are more expensive (the whole argument of the current, very lame Windows TV ad campaign), but that's because they're simply better and more reliable than Windows boxes on a long-term basis, and this proves that the American consumer will pay for quality. Even in this economy, this proves that consumers will pay more for reliability and stability and QUALITY over market share, a highly-overrated statistic, which means they're buying Apple. I look forward to Apple advancing even further into the Fortune 100 next year as more and more people discover that high-quality and reliability are much more valuable than a dying, highly-overrated brand name like Windows. Microsoft's days of dominance are over, Mr Balmer. Get over it and start concentrating on giving the American consumer a better product than Windows Vista, which is universally detested even in the Windows community. Apple's run has only started.

When are the numbers not the numbers? When some companies are deferring revenues. Take Apple's iPhone for example. They sell one, they get either $200 or $300 from the consumer, and they also get about $360 from AT&T. When it gets averaged out, they get about $600 for each and every iPhone they sell. And, yet, rather than count $600 in sales, they only count 1/8th of that amount, about $75, and defer the rest, $525 into future quarters. Sure, in a few more quarters, as iPhone sales stabilize, the amount deferred from previous quarters, will make up for the amount deferred in the current quarter, but it hasn't yet, and it's a very large number.

GAAP reported revenues are $32.4B, while the real sales are $38B.

hy philip, what would be apple's rank if the biggest us companies would be meausered in profits?

Fortune 500 rankings are based on revenue. This is not good or bad way to rank companies, it's just a way. The Yahoo list uses market capitalization – once again, just a different way to rank. You can assign whatever relevance you like to a ranking method, or come up with your own – net profit, gross profit, debt, stock activity, whatever. But it does not make sense to dispute that a company is where it is on a particular list because of some unrelated criteria. The numbers are the numbers.

Yes, Microsoft is still way up there, despite what their stock has done. As long as they are on 90% of the world’s computers and are still selling Windows and Office as de facto industry standards, they will have high revenues. And of course, Apple has risen due in part to the fact that others have fallen. But it's not as if they've never been in the top 100 before. And, once again, this (Fortune) is a revenue ranking. As long as Apple is able to maintain their computer average selling prices (ASP) as highest in the industry, and continue to sell hundreds of millions of music players and phones, they will keep raking in the cash. This is not MS or Apple fanboism. The numbers are the numbers.

Impressive indeed, when you consider that they don't actually give their customers what they ask for.

Apple was 28th on profits

Apple has a enough CASH and equivalents that they could buy 4 of the top 12 Fortune companies and become number 1 next year!

Hey Apple, for only $25 billion you can be number 1! Yay!

I can't wait for Fortune to Snif the Offy.

The Fortune list is an absolutely ridiculous waste of time. If you want to find out what millions upon millions of intelligent people have agreed are the largest companies in the world use Yahoo's Finance Screener: http://screen.yahoo.com/b?mc=100000000000/&b=1&z=mc&db=stocks&vw=1

Aside from math errors on the top three in the list, these market valuations are determined by investors who have analyzed these companies current financial information and future potential far better than Fortune ever can.

You'll notice Apple is, for all intents a purposes, the 23rd largest company in the world.

These comments sound like your typical Apple fanboys. Uninformed, unreasonable, and spouting their mouths off only to end up looking like complete idiots in the end.

are you not reading what is wrote

I wonder if this is such a big deal for investors. If a lot of companies have suffered big losses and have dropped down, Apple just basically moves up by default. Not sure if that is much to be proud about. I'm also not certain why this ranking is so important. I'd rather Apple's stock price move up instead of the company getting a higher ranking.

I think it would help to note that the ranking is based upon SALES. Your first sentence seems to imply it might be based upon profits, which it's not, since that might put Apple in the top-20.

The other things to note, is that Apple's sales are far higher than the $32B reported, as a good portion of Apple's actual sales in 2008, have been deferred for accounting reasons, even though the money has been banked.

Anyway, the Fortune list is a bit outdated, as sales without profits, is really not saying alot, when you have GM at #6 and Ford at #7. I mean, sales without profits should hardly be considered "winners", as the list introduces them as.

I just have to comment one more time. Microsoft at spot 35?? Are you kidding me? Microsoft's stock price has declined from $50 to under $20 over the past 9 years (since 2000). These people at Fortune are smoking something pretty serious if they're going to rank companies like Dell and Microsoft 30+ spots ahead of Apple. Again, I ask what are the criteria they're using for the rankings?

ex ped: Once again, the companies are ranked by revenue for the most recent fiscal year. It's how Fortune does it every year.

By the way, it is completely laughable that Dell is in the #33 spot, 30+ spots higher than Apple. What criteria are these editors at Fortune using to rank these companies? I don't know of any sound investor who would have chosen Dell over Apple these past 5 years.

ex ped: The editors at Fortune are using annual revenue to rank them. How else would you determine "America's largest companies"?

Quite honestly, how can Apple not be in the #1 spot? I've looked at a LOT of balance sheets, and Apple has the best one I've seen. Zero debt, over $20 billion in cash, generating $2-3 billion in cash per quarter. A decade long profit streak. Why isn't Apple #1? If there are 70 companies that make investors more money and value than Apple does over the long run, then I want to know about them!