Samsung Jumps to the 14th Spot On Fortune 500 List, Apple Hits 19th

Fortune has just released the 2013 iteration of its “Global 500” list, which ranks companies worldwide based on their overall revenue. As the title of this post suggests, Samsung has landed itself in the 14th position, up from 20th, sporting a revenue of $178.6 billion and profits of $20.6 billion. While Samsung’s rise is notable, Apple’s is even more impressive: it jumped from 55th to 19th. Furthering that feat, its profits of $41.7 billion outshine Samsung, especially based on its generated revenue of $156.5 billion.

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 Smartphone

To give an idea of how complicated it is for a consumer or enterprise company to land on the top 50, there are only two other familiar names in the top 50; Hon Hai (Foxconn) at 30th with $132.1 billion revenue and $3.2 billion profits, and Hewlett-Packard, which slots into the 43rd position. It produced a revenue of $120.4 billion, and losses of $12.7 billion – thanks in large part to its resulting loss of Autonomy after the $8.8 billion acquisition.

When comparing the revenues to the profits in this list, some interesting comparisons can be drawn. Walmart, for example, achieved a revenue of $469.2 billion, effectively 2.6x that of Samsung. But because of the low margins much of its product has, it produced less overall profit, of $17.0 billion. Hardly something to scoff at, though.

Looking exclusively at US-based companies in the top 200, AT&T places 34th ($127.4 billion revenue and 17.2 billion profit); Verizon, 48th ($115.8b and $0.9b); Microsoft, 110th ($73.7b and $17.0b); Comcast, 145th ($62.6b and $6.2b); Amazon.com, 149th ($61.1b and -$39.0 million); Dell, 165th ($56.9b and $2.4b); Intel, 183rd ($53.3b and $11.0b); and Google, 189th ($52.2b and $10.7b).