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Fortune 500

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

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

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

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

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

Fortune 500 list of 2024
Rank Company State Industry Revenue in USD
1 Walmart  Arkansas General Merchandisers $648.1 billion
2 Amazon  Washington Internet Services and Retailing $574.8 billion
3 Apple  California Computers, Office Equipment $383.3 billion
4 UnitedHealth Group  Minnesota Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care $371.6 billion
5 Berkshire Hathaway  Nebraska Insurance: Property and Casualty (stock) $364.5 billion
6 CVS Health  Rhode Island Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services $357.8 billion
7 ExxonMobil  Texas Petroleum Refining $344.6 billion
8 Alphabet Inc.  California Internet Services and Retailing $307.4 billion
9 McKesson Corporation  Texas Wholesalers: Health Care $276.7 billion
10 Cencora  Pennsylvania Wholesalers: Health Care $262.2 billion
11 Costco  Washington General Merchandisers $242.3 billion
12 JPMorgan Chase  New York Commercial Banks $239.4 billion
13 Microsoft  Washington Computer Software $211.9 billion
14 Cardinal Health  Ohio Wholesalers: Health Care $205.0 billion
15 Chevron Corporation  California Petroleum Refining $200.9 billion
16 Cigna  Connecticut Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services $195.3 billion
17 Ford Motor Company  Michigan Motor Vehicles & Parts $176.2 billion
18 Bank of America  North Carolina Commercial Banks $171.9 billion
19 General Motors  Michigan Motor Vehicles & Parts $171.8 billion
20 Elevance Health  Indiana Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care $171.3 billion

Breakdown by state

This is the list of the top 18 states with the most companies within the Fortune 500 as of 2024.[10]

Breakdown by state
Rank State Companies
1  California 57
2  New York 52
 Texas 52
4  Illinois 32
5  Ohio 27
6  Virginia 24
7  Florida 22
8  Pennsylvania 20
9  Georgia 18
10  Minnesota 17
11  Massachusetts 16
 Michigan 16
13  Connecticut 15
14  New Jersey 14
15  North Carolina 12
 Washington 12
17  Arizona 10
 Tennessee 10

See also

References

  1. ^ "Fortune 500". Fortune. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
  2. ^ 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. ^ "Map: The Number of Fortune 500 Companies in Each U.S. State". Visual Capitalist. Retrieved November 9, 2024.