Apple has ranked third in the annual Fortune 500 list of the highest-revenue-generating companies based in the United States, with $265.5 billion revenue in fiscal 2018, trailing only Walmart and oil giant ExxonMobil.
Apple moved up one spot in this year's rankings, overtaking billionaire investor Warren Buffett's holding company Berkshire Hathaway.
Fortune's description of Apple:
Two thousand eighteen will be remembered as the year that Apple first achieved a market value of $1 trillion, as well as when growth in iPhones, Apple's largest single product by far, began to slow. Before the introduction of the iPod—the iPhone's precursor—Apple was a once-exciting computer maker. Now, only a retailer and an oil company are bigger. Its challenge: as consumers hang onto phones longer, Apple is repositioning itself as a services provider. Already iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud, and cuts from sales in its popular Apple Store generate billions of dollars of sales.
Apple has made the Fortune 500 list for 37 years and has now cracked the top 10 spots for seven consecutive years:
- 2019: 3rd
- 2018: 4th
- 2017: 3rd
- 2016: 3rd
- 2015: 5th
- 2014: 5th
- 2013: 6th
- 2012: 17th
- 2011: 35th
- 2010: 56th
Other notable technology companies in this year's Fortune 500 include Amazon in fifth, Google parent company Alphabet in 15th, and Microsoft in 26th.
