Apple rose to third place in the Fortune 500 Companies list, up a place from the year before. It sat ahead of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and was only beaten by Exxon Mobil and Walmart.
Apple’s Revenue and Profit Soaring
Apple’s reported annual revenue for the fiscal year 2018 of $265.6 billion, a 15.9% increase from the year before, lifted it into third. The company recorded over $59.5 billion in profit over that same 12 month period, up 23.1%. Exxon Mobil had revenue of over $290 billion. Walmart led the list with over $514 billion in revenue.
Fortune noted that Apple became valued at over $1 trillion in 2018, but also saw iPhone sales begin to slow. The write-up noted how the firm has developed over the years:
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.
The article said the company’s ongoing challenge is to develop as a service provider. However, it acknowledged that “already iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud, and cuts from sales in its popular Apple Store generate billions of dollars of sales.”