The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc.'s Fortune|Money Group. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest media conglomerate. Fortune' magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language closely held and public corporations A public company or publicly traded company is a company that has permission to offer its registered securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or occasionally a company whose stock is traded over the counter (OTC) via market makers who use non-exchange quotation services as ranked by their gross revenue In business, revenues or revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover. Some companies receive revenue from interest, dividends or royalties paid to them by other companies after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes An excise or excise tax may be defined broadly as an inland tax on the production for sale; or sale, of a specific good, or narrowly as a tax on a good produced for sale, or sold, within the country. Excises are distinguished from customs duties, which are taxes on importation. Excises, whether broadly defined or narrowly defined, are inland taxes, companies collect.[1] The list includes publicly and privately-held companies for which revenues are publicly available. The first Fortune 500 list was published in 1955.
Wal-Mart Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores and a chain of membership required warehouse stores. In 2010 it was the world's largest public corporation by revenue, according to the Forbes Global 2000 for that year. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, was the largest company on the list in 2007 and 2008. ExxonMobil The Exxon Mobil Corporation, or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are located in Irving, Texas was in second place[2] in 2007 and 2008, but overtook Wal-Mart Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores and a chain of membership required warehouse stores. In 2010 it was the world's largest public corporation by revenue, according to the Forbes Global 2000 for that year. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, in 2009.[3] Wal-Mart once again regained the top spot in 2010.
Although the Fortune 500 list is the most familiar one, similar gross revenue lists of the top firms range from the highest ranking Fortune 100 including the top one hundred to the broader ranking Fortune 1000 Fortune 1000 is a reference to a list maintained by the American business magazine Fortune. The list is of the 1000 largest American companies, ranked on revenues alone. Eligible companies are any which are incorporated in the United States, and for which revenues are publicly available . The Fortune 500 is the subset of the list that is its 500 that includes the top thousand firms. While the membership on the smaller lists is somewhat stable, the ranking on the lists may change over time, depending upon revenues and often, because of mergers among firms already listed.
The original Fortune 500 was restricted to companies whose revenues were derived from manufacturing, mining, or energy exploration. 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). These have been consolidated into one single list, so the Fortune 500 as it exists today includes companies that in previous years would have been on one of the "Fortune 50" lists.
See also
- Fortune Global 500 The Fortune Global 500 is a ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by Fortune magazine
- Forbes Global 2000 The Forbes Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world by Forbes magazine. The ranking is based on a mix of four metrics: Sales, Profit, Assets and Market value. The list has been published since 2003
References
- ^ Fortune 500, USPages.com.
- ^ "Wal-Mart beats Exxon Mobil to remain atop Fortune 500 list". Los Angeles Times. April 22, 2008. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/22/business/fi-fortune22. Retrieved 2009-03-22.
- ^ "ExxonMobil Overtakes Wal-Mart, Tops Fortune 500". ABC News. April 20, 2009. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/wireStory?id=7376949. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
External links
- Permanent link
- Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2010
- Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2009
- Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2008
- Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2007
- Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2006
- Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 1955-2005
- Downloadable (CSV) version of full list of Fortune 500/1000 companies - 1955-2009
Categories: Lists of companies | Fortune (magazine) | Top lists | Annual magazine issues
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