One of the most interesting facts we have read over the last few months is that some of the biggest companies of today, actually aren’t that big.
If you were to mull over the history books, they don’t even touch some of the brands that once dominated the world. For example, in the case of the Dutch East India Company, this was worth more than twenty of the world’s current top companies. Granted, this was all the way back in 1637, but with inflation this is still the story.
Of course, today’s post is about the here and now. We all know about powerful brands, and the hidden tricks they use to make us more and more accustomed with them. We also know that these brands are constantly investing in shrewd methods to grab even more market share – and seem to be doing a very good job of this. In other words, they are all showing signs of growth.
So, who are the ten companies with the highest revenue in the United States?
- Walmart
- Exxon Mobil
- Apple
- Berkshire Hathaway
- Amazon
- UnitedHealth Group
- McKesson
- CVS Health
- AT&T
- AmerisourceBergen
Unsurprisingly, all of the above make an appearance in the World 500. In fact, if we were to hone in AmerisourceBergen who are “bottom” of the above list, this is a company which is only 27th in the World 500. In other words, these ten companies make up a large proportion of the world’s biggest firms.
Based on the above, some might be surprised to see the position of Amazon. After all, this is a company who have been heavily in the news over recent times, with their CEO Jeff Bezos the richest man in Washington, and after the news that the value of their brand overtook both Google and Apple.
However, they are only ranked fifth in the above list. This is mainly because this list is based on revenue.
For example, in the case of Walmart, this is a company who may have earned over $514 billion in revenue, but if we drill down into the profit statistics this was “only” $6.67 billion.
Then if we return to the Amazon, while their revenue was significantly lower at $232 billion, their profit was a huge $10.07 billion.
Of course, while we can get tangled up on profits and revenue, some of the news stories over the last few years have concentrated on the value of a brand. It goes without saying that this is something of a grey metric, that tends to be put together by compiling a variety of sources. These sources can include the figures published in a company’s annual accounts but can go more qualitative such as customer surveys.
Regardless of how they are measured, the one thing that we can conclude from the above is that all of these companies are monsters in their respective industries – and showing no signs of giving up market share.