Kantor said:
It depends on the measure. According to the Fortune 500, Apple is 56th: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/full_list/ Wal-Mart is first, Exxon-Mobil second, and Chevron third. I believe the "Apple is second" figure was based on market capitalisation, and is still wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_capitalization#2010 ExxonMobil, then PetroChina, THEN Apple (for Q3 2010). Microsoft's dropped to sixth for the quarter. It's more a measure of investor confidence than actual company size, from what I've seen. It's authorised shares * share price. Apple's share price is enormous, but that doesn't make it a large company. EDIT: I suppose it's also a measure of how much a company costs. But nobody's going to buy Apple. Apple also isn't going to buy Sony, which has a market cap of $24 billion (relatively low) and assets of $140 billion (triple those of Apple). |
Market Cap is a poor indicator anyway, just because it's really only useful if you're looking to buy the company, and even *then* it doesn't work, because trying to buy a publically traded company is only going to raise its market cap anyway
Not picking on you, btw, just making a general point. If you want to look at the strength of a company, market cap is only one of three factors (the other two being revenue and profits. Looking at only one of the three gives a distorted view)
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
