Fortune 500 Companies in the US
The Fortune 500 is an annual ranking of the 500 largest US corporations based on total sales for the previous fiscal year. Fortune magazine gathered and published the list. Being included on the Fortune 500 is seen as respectable, as companies on the list are thought to be of high quality. Since 1955, the Fortune 500 has published a ranking of the most successful businesses. Private firms that do not file financial statements with government agencies, overseas corporations, American companies that other companies consolidate, and companies that fail to report comprehensive financial statements for at least three quarters of the current fiscal year are all omitted.

Fortune 500 companies
The Fortune 500 is an annual list prepared and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the top firms in the United States by total revenue for their fiscal years. The list covers both publicly traded firms and privately held enterprises with publicly disclosed revenue. Edgar P. Smith, a Fortune editor, came up with the idea for the Fortune 500, which was originally published in 1955. The Fortune 500 is more widely used than its subsets and supersets, the Fortune 100 and Fortune 1000.
What is the Fortune 500?
The Fortune 500 is a list of the 500 largest corporations in the United States issued annually by Fortune magazine. Companies are rated according to their yearly revenues during the fiscal years in question. Using publicly accessible revenue statistics, this list covers both public and private enterprises. Being a Fortune 500 firm is usually seen as a badge of honor.
Understand Fortune 500 companies and history
Henry Robinson Luce created Fortune magazine in 1929.1 The inaugural edition was released the following year, and it has since grown to become one of the most influential business newspapers in the world. Originally published monthly, the journal now publishes 16 issues per year and has a strong online presence. In 1955, the magazine published its first ranking of the most successful public and private enterprises in the United States. It was designed by editor Edgar P. Smith to gauge the size and influence of American corporations at a period when the country’s economic might was “the envy of the world”. The list was originally known as the Fortune Industrial 500, but it was later abbreviated to Fortune 500.
Growth of Fortune 500 companies
Companies that are established and operate in the United States and file financial statements with government authorities are included in the Fortune 500 survey. This comprises both publicly traded and privately held businesses. Private firms that do not file financial statements with government agencies, overseas corporations, American companies that other companies consolidate, and companies that fail to report comprehensive financial statements for at least three quarters of the current fiscal year are all omitted. Companies will be rated in 2020 based on total sales disclosed in their 10-K filings or similar financial statements for their respective fiscal years.
How does the methodology of Fortune 500 work?
Total revenues for fiscal years ending on or before March 31 are used to rank companies. All firms on the list are required to publish financial statistics and report some or all of their financial information to the government. Numbers are as reported, and comparisons are made with figures from the previous year as initially reported. For accounting adjustments, Fortune does not restate the previous year’s data. The Fortune Global 500 is a rating of the top 500 companies in the world by total revenue, whereas the Fortune 500 is a list of just U.S. companies.
- Balance sheet – A balance sheet is a summary of an individual’s or organization’s financial balances in financial accounting, whether it’s a sole proprietorship, a business partnership, a corporation, a private limited company, or another organization like the government or a not-for-profit organization.
- Employees – An employee is a person hired by a firm to do a certain activity. After an application and interview process decides that the person is qualified for the role, the company hires him or her. When the firm judges that the candidate is the best qualified among their candidates to undertake the position for which they are hiring, they make this choice.
- Profit – Profit is earned when money generated from a commercial activity exceeds the expenses, costs, and taxes involved in maintaining the activity in question. Profits are returned to business owners, who can choose to take the money or put it back into the company. Entire revenue is subtracted from total costs to arrive at a profit.
- Earning per share – To determine profits per share, a company’s net profit is divided by the number of common shares it has outstanding (EPS). Because it reflects how much money a company makes for each share of its stock, EPS is an often-used measure for determining corporate value. In business and accounting, net income is defined as an entity’s revenue fewer costs, depreciation and amortization, interest, and taxes for a certain accounting period.
- Revenue – The average sales price multiplied by the number of units sold equals revenue, which is computed as the average sales price multiplied by the number of units sold. It is the top line (or gross revenue) statistic from which net income is calculated by subtracting costs. On the income statement, revenue is also known as sales.
- Medians – The median is the middle number in a list of numbers that have been sorted ascending or descending, and it might be more descriptive of the data set than the average. When there are outliers in the series that might affect the average of the numbers, the median is frequently utilized instead of the mean.
- Total return to investors – When evaluating performance, total return refers to the actual rate of return of an investment or a group of assets over a certain time period. Over the course of a term, total return comprises interest, capital gains, dividends, and distributions. Income, which includes interest paid by fixed-income assets, distributions, or dividends, and capital appreciation, which represents a rise in the market price of an asset, are both included in total return.
Important stats to know for Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is being published for the 65th time this year. With $13.7 trillion in sales, $1.1 trillion in earnings, $22.6 trillion in market value, and 28.7 million employees globally, Fortune 500 firms account for two-thirds of the US GDP.
The following are some noteworthy facts about the Fortune 500 firms in 2019:
- The total revenue of the Fortune 500 firms in 2019 was $13.7 trillion (roughly two-thirds of the U.S. GDP).
- Each firm on the list has revenue of at least $5.6 billion.
- Walmart has been the top-ranking Fortune 500 business since 2013, with revenues of $514 billion in 2019.
- With a revenue growth rate of 30.9 percent, Amazon.com is the fastest-growing firm on the Fortune 500 list.
- With $59 billion in earnings, Apple is the most profitable Fortune 500 business.
- On the most recent Fortune 500 list, DCX Technology had the largest rank rise, jumping 252 positions.
- Walmart has the most employees (2,200,000), followed by Amazon.com (647,500), and Kroger (647,500). (453,000).
Top fortune 500 companies by their ranking
Today, Fortune Magazine is a globally recognized business media brand with a transnational monthly magazine, a website, and a number of conference series featuring the world’s most powerful people. The following are the top 100 Fortune 500 firms:
Rank | Company | Revenue($M) | Market Value | Employees |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Walmart | $559,151 | $382,643 | 2300000 |
2 | Amazon | $386,064 | $1,558,070 | 1298000 |
3 | Apple | $274,515 | $2,050,666 | 147000 |
4 | CVS Health | $268,706 | $98,653 | 256500 |
5 | UnitedHealth Group | $257,141 | $351,725 | 330000 |
6 | Berkshire Hathaway | $245,510 | $587,823 | 360000 |
7 | McKesson | $231,051 | $31,044 | 70000 |
8 | AmerisourceBergen | $189,894 | $24,170 | 21500 |
9 | Alphabet | $182,527 | $1,392,562 | 135301 |
10 | Exxon Mobil | $181,502 | $236,355 | 72000 |
11 | AT&T | $171,760 | $215,879 | 230760 |
12 | Costco Wholesale | $166,761 | $155,984 | 214500 |
13 | Cigna | $160,401 | $83,976 | 72963 |
14 | Cardinal Health | $152,922 | $17,840 | 48000 |
15 | Microsoft | $143,015 | $1,778,228 | 163000 |
16 | Walgreens Boots Alliance | $139,537 | $47,455 | 277000 |
17 | Kroger | $132,498 | $27,064 | 465000 |
18 | Home Depot | $132,110 | $328,775 | 504800 |
19 | JPMorgan Chase | $129,503 | $464,531 | 255351 |
20 | Verizon Communications | $128,292 | $240,633 | 132200 |
21 | Ford Motor | $127,144 | $48,739 | 186000 |
22 | General Motors | $122,485 | $82,795 | 155000 |
23 | Anthem | $121,867 | $87,909 | 83400 |
24 | Centene | $111,115 | $37,170 | 71300 |
25 | Fannie Mae | $106,437 | $2,397 | 7700 |
26 | Comcast | $103,564 | $247,859 | 168000 |
27 | Chevron | $94,692 | $201,865 | 47736 |
28 | Dell Technologies | $94,224 | $67,229 | 158000 |
29 | Bank of America | $93,753 | $333,788 | 212505 |
30 | Target | $93,561 | $98,761 | 409000 |
31 | Lowe's | $89,597 | $136,408 | 280000 |
32 | Marathon Petroleum | $88,952 | $34,874 | 57900 |
33 | Citigroup | $88,839 | $151,806 | 210153 |
34 | Meta Platforms | $85,965 | $838,724 | 58604 |
35 | UPS | $84,628 | $147,792 | 408255 |
36 | Johnson & Johnson | $82,584 | $432,685 | 134500 |
37 | Wells Fargo | $80,303 | $161,521 | 268531 |
38 | General Electric | $79,619 | $115,343 | 184000 |
39 | State Farm Insurance | $78,898 | - | 57582 |
40 | Intel | $77,867 | $260,630 | 110600 |
41 | Humana | $77,155 | $54,088 | 48700 |
42 | IBM | $73,620 | $119,080 | 364800 |
43 | Procter & Gamble | $70,950 | $333,493 | 99000 |
44 | PepsiCo | $70,372 | $195,208 | 291000 |
45 | FedEx | $69,217 | $75,368 | 418000 |
46 | MetLife | $67,842 | $53,763 | 46500 |
47 | Freddie Mac | $66,228 | $1,333 | 6922 |
48 | Phillips 66 | $65,494 | $35,704 | 14300 |
49 | Lockheed Martin | $65,398 | $102,984 | 114000 |
50 | Walt Disney | $65,388 | $334,953 | 203000 |
51 | Archer Daniels Midland | $64,355 | $31,835 | 38332 |
52 | Albertsons | $62,455 | $8,878 | 270000 |
53 | Valero Energy | $60,115 | $29,267 | 9964 |
54 | Boeing | $58,158 | $148,665 | 141000 |
55 | Prudential Financial (U.S.) | $57,033 | $36,022 | 41671 |
56 | HP | $56,639 | $39,580 | 53000 |
57 | Raytheon Technologies | $56,587 | $117,144 | 181000 |
58 | StoneX | $54,140 | $1,284 | 2950 |
59 | Goldman Sachs Group | $53,498 | $116,903 | 40500 |
60 | Sysco | $52,893 | $40,190 | 57000 |
61 | Morgan Stanley | $52,047 | $146,162 | 68097 |
62 | HCA Healthcare | $51,533 | $63,459 | 235000 |
63 | Cisco Systems | $49,301 | $218,309 | 77500 |
64 | Charter Communications | $48,097 | $128,966 | 96100 |
65 | Merck | $47,994 | $195,062 | 73500 |
66 | Best Buy | $47,262 | $28,708 | 81600 |
67 | New York Life Insurance | $46,712 | - | 11506 |
68 | AbbVie | $45,804 | $190,989 | 47000 |
69 | Publix Super Markets | $45,204 | - | 227000 |
70 | Allstate | $44,791 | $34,800 | 42010 |
71 | Liberty Mutual Insurance Group | $43,796 | - | 45000 |
72 | American International Group | $43,736 | $39,849 | 45000 |
73 | Tyson Foods | $43,185 | $27,100 | 139000 |
74 | Progressive | $42,658 | $55,947 | 43326 |
75 | Bristol-Myers Squibb | $42,518 | $141,028 | 30250 |
76 | Nationwide | $41,930 | - | 25391 |
77 | Pfizer | $41,908 | $202,097 | 78500 |
78 | Caterpillar | $41,748 | $126,440 | 97300 |
79 | TIAA | $41,619 | - | 14953 |
80 | Oracle | $39,068 | $202,338 | 135000 |
81 | Energy Transfer | $38,954 | $20,755 | 11421 |
82 | Dow | $38,542 | $47,650 | 35700 |
83 | American Express | $38,185 | $113,636 | 63700 |
84 | General Dynamics | $37,925 | $51,482 | 100700 |
85 | Nike | $37,403 | $209,500 | 75400 |
86 | Northrop Grumman | $36,799 | $53,957 | 97000 |
87 | USAA | $36,296 | - | 35935 |
88 | Deere | $35,540 | $117,270 | 69634 |
89 | Abbott Laboratories | $34,608 | $212,300 | 109000 |
90 | Northwestern Mutual | $33,782 | - | 6641 |
91 | Dollar General | $33,747 | $48,480 | 158000 |
92 | Exelon | $33,039 | $42,724 | 32340 |
93 | Coca-Cola | $33,014 | $227,144 | 80300 |
94 | Honeywell International | $32,637 | $150,972 | 103000 |
95 | Thermo Fisher Scientific | $32,218 | $179,719 | 84362 |
96 | 3M | $32,184 | $111,642 | 94987 |
97 | TJX | $32,137 | $79,775 | 320000 |
98 | Travelers Cos. | $31,981 | $37,933 | 30294 |
99 | Capital One Financial | $31,643 | $58,097 | 51985 |
100 | Tesla | $31,536 | $641,115 | 70757 |
Manage your company equity and shareholders with Eqvista!
Eqvista is the ideal program for you if you’ve been wondering how to deal with your company’s shares and equity difficulties. Eqvista is a community of entrepreneurs, software engineers, valuation experts, attorneys, and accountants that have banded together to provide you with all of the equity assistance you require most efficiently and effectively possible. Don’t wait to fill up the signup form and get a free consultation today.