Random Thoughts

2006 List of Fortune Top American companies

The Year of 2005 when the big oil displaced the retail giant

Finally, it happened. Hot oil market in 2005 helped Exxon Mobil to
snatch the top position in the list of Fortune 500 American companies
from the retailing behemoth Wal-Mart Stores. Exxon mopped up revenues
of USD 339.94 billion, slightly higher than USD 315.64 billion earned
by Wal-Mart. But, the growth in revenues clocked by the former (25.5%)
was much sharper than that reported by the latter (9.6%).

Exxon staged an impressive performance on the profits front as well. It
became the largest profit maker US company (USD 36.13 billion) with 42.6
per cent rise in bottomline. This was way higher than Wal-Mart's profit
of USD 11.23 billion growing at a pace of 9.4 per cent.

General Motors was the distant third in the revenues list with sales of
USD 192.6 billion closely followed by Chevron (USD 189.48 billion). While
a 28.1 per cent jump in revenues helped Chevron to move two places up,
GM could retain its position despite a small decline of 0.5 per cent
in revenues.

Overall, the top 500 American companies grossed USD 9.1 trillion in 2005,
a rise of 10.2%. This formed more than 70% of the American GDP. Profits
rose by 18.8% to USD 610 billion. The top four industries clocking the
maximum profits were commercial banking (USD 91.7 billion), petroleum
refining (USD 74.5 billion), insurance (USD 47.3 billion) and pharma
(USD 42.5 billion).

Labels: Corporations

posted by Ranjit @ 4/18/2006 11:12:00 am