Name: Introducing the 2018 Fortune 500
Uploaded: 2018-05-17
Duration: 3 min 22 s
Description: This year marks the 64th running of the list.

[ MUSIC ] The Fortune 500 is Fortune magazines ranking of America's largest corporations by revenue. These are massive companies with a ton of influence. [ MUSIC ] For more than six decades Fortune has tallied up the revenues. For companies across the United States. To get on the list it's real simple, make more money than everybody else. It was a pretty good year to be a corporate CEO. Executives care about the Fortune 500 because it is a berimeter for success. You convey to the rest of the business community that you make real money. The cut off list this year for the 2018 edition was about $ 5. 4 billion. In revenue in 2017. Overall market value for the 500 companies jumped 11 % this past year to $ 21. 6 trillion. It was also only the second time in history that the Fortune 500 combined passed the $ 1 trillion mark in profits, it happened in 2013, and it happened again last year. So, these are all signs of a relatively healthy economy. Number one on the list this year for the sixth straight time is Walmart. This is the first time that a company has topped $ 500 billion in revenue. You've got Exon Mobile at number two, jumping two spots because of rising oil prices. Number three on the list this year is Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway with $ 242 billion in revenue. And with $ 44 billion in profits it was the second most profitable this year behind Apple. Number four of the 500 this year is Apple, which drops one spot despise booking $ 229 billion in revenue, Apple was the most profitable company on technology again this year, $ 48. 4 billion in profits. And it's the most valuable company in the world by market value with a recent market cap of about $ 850 billion. Amazon cracked the top ten this year for the first time ever, moving up to number 8 from number 12. A lot of people think that the Whole Foods acquisition is what's helping Amazon's revenue growth. Most of it's actual core business is helping. The retail business, of course that everyone knows, plus Amazon web service. which provides internet services to much of the rest of the Fortune 500. Fortune 500 is really interesting in that it does really serve as a way to look at bigger picture trends. One thing that's interesting about this year's Fortune 500 is the rise of the artificial intelligence company. Facebook, Google, chip makers like Nvidia are all rising and they're becoming powerhouses in AI. Speaker 1- Artificial Intelligence is the future capability of business and it is going to make a lot of money. Speaker 2- Five of the six most valuable companies on this years list are tech companies, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook. Those big market caps reflect a belief by investors that these tech companies are going to continue to grow in the future. Future. One big trend this year is that traditional retailers, like Sears and Toys " R" Us, are really struggling and falling down the list as Amazon reaches new heights. One of the interesting things this year is that a lot of companies, even though the tax reform bill was passed at the very end of 2017, it's reflected in a lot of the companies' profits. A lot of telecom companies got a boost and some financial services companies took a hit. We'll see something totally different next year. [ MUSIC ]

Introducing the 2018 Fortune 500

This year marks the 64th running of the list.