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Fortune has published its annual list of the world’s 500 largest companies, and several information technology firms are included. Notably, Apple broke into the top 10 of the Fortune 500 for the first time ever, and Facebook made the list for the first time.
Computerworld’s Greg Keizer reported, “Apple climbed the Fortune 500 this year to the No. 6 spot, its highest-ever ranking, its first time in the top 10, and the top technology company on the influential list, replacing sagging HP. Fortune, which ranks firms by annual revenue, released its updated Fortune 500 list today. The revenue cutoff this year was approximately $4.8 billion. Apple easily beat that, with revenue of $156.5 billion for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2012, behind Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Phillips 66 and Berkshire Hathaway, the Nebraska holding company owned by billionaire CEO Warren Buffett.”
Fortune wrote “Apple is bigger than ever — the company cracked the Fortune 10 this year. But it’s a high-pressure job, being king of the hill. At Apple’s press event this past October, it maintained more than disrupted with its software upgrades and iPad mini announcement. Also, CEO Tim Cook had to apologize a lot in the past year — once in September for the failure of Apple’s maps app, and then to Chinese consumers this April for slow repair services — this in a market that Cook said this past January would be Apple’s largest.”
The AP observed, “Another technology bellwether wasn’t as fortunate. Hewlett-Packard Co. slipped to No. 15 from No. 10 as the Palo Alto, Calif., technology pioneer struggled with a broad consumer shift from PCs to smartphones and tablets and its own accounting missteps…. Meanwhile, social media powerhouse Facebook Inc., which last year went public in one of the biggest initial public offerings ever, debuted at 482 on the Fortune 500.”
PCMag’s Stephanie Mlot noted, “AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, and Verizon Communications snagged spots 11, 16, and 17, respectively, to round out the tech companies in the top 20. Microsoft and Comcast landed in the top 50, falling into place at numbers 35 and 46, respectively. Amazon just missed the cut in 51st place, followed closely by Intel (54) and Google (55). Also on the list: Oracle (80), DirecTV (102), Time Warner Cable (134), Qualcomm (149), CenturyLink (150), eBay (196), Viacom (198), Texas Instruments (218), Western Digital (222), and Yahoo (494).”
