In the Fortune Global 500 rankings of the world’s biggest companies, Apple has climbed from rom twelfth to sixth place for revenue and third to first place for profit.
The top 10 in terms of revenue were: Walmart (approximately US$524 billion), State Grade ($384 billion), Amazon ($281 billion), China National Petroleum ($379 billion), Sinopec Group ($407 billion), Apple ($260 billion), CVS Health ($257 billion), UnitedHealth Group ($242 billion), Toyota ($275 billion), and Volkswagen ($283 billion).
Fortune lists $57 billion as Apple’s profit on its $274 billion revenue. This is up a bit from last year. In 2021 revenue was reported to be $260 billion, of which $55 billion was profit.
Here’s what Fortune has to say about Apple: The pandemic created challenges and opportunities for Apple. CEO Tim Cook had to close stores and send home engineers. But with Apple customers worldwide working and learning from home, iPad and Macintosh computer sales skyrocketed to their highest levels ever. And fiscal-year revenue hit an all-time record too, of $275 billion. That helped Apple’s stock price soar; it gained 80.7% in 2020. As that year wound down, regulators fixed their sights on Apple for potentially abusing its power over the iOS app store. A House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee report in October concluded that Apple “exerts monopoly power” in its app store to harm competition and increase prices for consumers. Meanwhile, testimony in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Fortnite developer Epic Games will likely increase pressure on legislators to limit Apple’s power.
Fortune notes that the Global 500 shrank a little over the past year. After reaching a record high of $33.3 trillion in the 2020 edition, total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year. It was the first decline in half a decade. The culprit, of course, was COVID-19, which slammed huge swaths of the global economy as countries went into lockdown.
