Fortune 500

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.

The July 24, 2006 issue of Fortune, featuring its Fortune 500 list

History

The Fortune 500, created by Edgar P. Smith, was first published in January 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.

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 2024

Rank	Company	State	Industry	Revenue in USD
1	Walmart	Arkansas	General Merchandisers	$648.1 billion
2	Amazon	Washington	Internet Services and Retailing	$574.8 billion
3	Apple	California	Computers, Office Equipment	$383.3 billion
4	UnitedHealth Group	Minnesota	Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care	$371.6 billion
5	Berkshire Hathaway	Nebraska	Insurance: Property and Casualty (stock)	$364.5 billion
6	CVS Health	Rhode Island	Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services	$357.8 billion
7	ExxonMobil	Texas	Petroleum Refining	$344.6 billion
8	Alphabet Inc.	California	Internet Services and Retailing	$307.4 billion
9	McKesson Corporation	Texas	Wholesalers: Health Care	$276.7 billion
10	Cencora	Pennsylvania	Wholesalers: Health Care	$262.2 billion
11	Costco	Washington	General Merchandisers	$242.3 billion
12	JPMorgan Chase	New York	Commercial Banks	$239.4 billion
13	Microsoft	Washington	Computer Software	$211.9 billion
14	Cardinal Health	Ohio	Wholesalers: Health Care	$205.0 billion
15	Chevron Corporation	California	Petroleum Refining	$200.9 billion
16	Cigna	Connecticut	Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services	$195.3 billion
17	Ford Motor Company	Michigan	Motor Vehicles & Parts	$176.2 billion
18	Bank of America	North Carolina	Commercial Banks	$171.9 billion
19	General Motors	Michigan	Motor Vehicles & Parts	$171.8 billion
20	Elevance Health	Indiana	Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care	$171.3 billion

Breakdown by state

This is the list of the top 18 states with the most companies within the Fortune 500 as of 2024.

Breakdown by state

Rank	State	Companies
1	California	57
2	New York	52
	Texas	52
4	Illinois	32
5	Ohio	27
6	Virginia	24
7	Florida	22
8	Pennsylvania	20
9	Georgia	18
10	Minnesota	17
11	Massachusetts	16
	Michigan	16
13	Connecticut	15
14	New Jersey	14
15	North Carolina	12
	Washington	12
17	Arizona	10
	Tennessee	10

See also

• United States portal
• Companies portal

• 40 Under 40
• Fortune Global 500
• Fortune India 500
• Fortune 1000
• List of largest companies in the United States by revenue
• List of largest companies by revenue
• List of Fortune 500 computer software and information companies
• List of women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies
• Forbes Global 2000
• Total Fortune 1000 companies by urban area list

References

1. "Fortune 500". Fortune. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
2. "Edgar Smith, 69, Dies; Retired Time Executive". The New York Times. October 12, 1989. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
3. "1955 Full list". Fortune. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
4. Williams, Sean (June 4, 2015). "Fortune 100: Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About This Popular Annual Ranking". The Motley Fool. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
5. "What happened to the first Fortune 500?". Fortune. Retrieved March 24, 2017.
6. Semczuk, Nina (2024-03-13). "What Are Fortune 500 Companies?". Bankrate. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
7. Groves, Martha (April 26, 1995). "Service Now Counts with Fortune 500". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 12, 2017.
8. Klooster, Alison (May 18, 2020). "FORTUNE Announces 2020 FORTUNE 500 List, Launches First Ever "History Of The FORTUNE 500" Data Analytics Visualization Site With Partner Qli". Fortune. Retrieved October 1, 2020 – via Cision PR Newswire.
9. "Fortune 500 List of Companies 2022". Fortune. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
10. "Map: The Number of Fortune 500 Companies in Each U.S. State". Visual Capitalist. Retrieved November 9, 2024.

External links

• Official website
• Full list of Fortune 500 companies: 1955–2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022