Fortune 500 facts for kids

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. 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. The Fortune 500 is more commonly used than its subset Fortune 100 or superset Fortune 1000.

History

The Fortune 500, created by Edgar P. Smith, was first published in 1955. The original top ten companies were General Motors, Jersey Standard, U.S. Steel, General Electric, Esmark, Chrysler, Armour, Gulf Oil, Mobil, and DuPont.

Methodology

The original Fortune 500 was limited to companies whose revenues were derived from manufacturing, mining, and 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). 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. There is a lag in creating the list, so for example, the 2019 Fortune 500 is based on each company's financial years ending in late 2018 (most commonly, on December 31), or early 2019.

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.

Overview

The following is the list of top 20 companies.

Fortune 500 list of 2023

Rank	Company	State	Industry	Revenue in USD
1	Walmart	Arkansas	General merchandisers	$611.2 billion
2	Amazon	Washington	Internet service and retailing	$513.9 billion
3	ExxonMobil	Texas	Petroleum refining	$413.6 billion
4	Apple	California	Technology	$394.2 billion
5	UnitedHealth Group	Minnesota	Health care: insurance and managed care	$324.1 billion
6	CVS Health	Rhode Island	Health care: pharmacy and other services	$322.4 billion
7	Berkshire Hathaway	Nebraska	Insurance: property and casualty (stock)	$302 billion
8	Alphabet	California	Internet services and retailing	$282.8 billion
9	McKesson	Texas	Wholesalers: health care	$263.9 billion
10	Chevron Corporation	California	Energy, oil and gas	$246.2 billion
11	Cencora	Pennsylvania	Wholesalers: health care	$238.5 billion
12	Costco	Washington	Wholesalers	$226.95 billion
13	Microsoft	Washington	Technology	$198.2 billion
14	Cardinal Health	Ohio	Healthcare	$181.364 billion
15	Cigna	Connecticut	Managed care, insurance	$180.5 billion
16	Marathon Petroleum	Ohio	Petroleum	$180 billion
17	Phillips 66	Texas	Energy, oil and gas	$175.7 billion
18	Valero Energy	Texas	Energy, oil and gas	$171.1 billion
19	Ford Motor Company	Michigan	Automotive	$158 billion
20	The Home Depot	Georgia	Retail	$157.4 billion

Breakdown by state

This is the list of the top 18 states with the most companies within the Fortune 500 as of 2021.

Breakdown by state

Rank	State	Companies
1	California	53
	New York	53
3	Texas	49
4	Illinois	28
5	Ohio	25
6	Pennsylvania	24
7	Virginia	22
8	Florida	20
9	Georgia	19
10	Massachusetts	18
	Minnesota	18
12	Michigan	17
13	New Jersey	16
14	Connecticut	14
15	North Carolina	12
16	Colorado	10
	Missouri	10
	Tennessee	10

See also

In Spanish: Fortune 500 para niños