The biggest company in the world......

Madd Finn

... is NOT Apple. It's not even the biggest company in America. Wal Mart is three times bigger.

Of course this JAFA journalist doesn't know that. It doesn't matter if you state an incorrect fact four times in the one article. It still doesn't make it true.

By convention, size is measured in revenues.
Success is measured in profits.
The share price times number of shares gives you the market capitalization, which admittedly is very favourable in Apple's case but it's also very volatile. Ask anyone who ever owned shares in an Irish bank.

Where is jmcc when you need him?

galljga1

Apple is the biggest company by market cap by a country mile, some where in the region of twice the size of number two Exon and three times the size of Wal-Mart.

Digital Solitude

Are you going to share the knowledge OP?

My moneys on Alibaba

Madd Finn

Wal-Mart is the biggest company in America, on revenues. Followed by Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Berkshire Hathaway. Apple is next in fifth place.

At least that's going by the most recent Fortune 500 listing, which ranks companies according to annual revenues. Even that is open to slight error because companies report financials at different times of the year. The Fortune 500 is based on the most recent full year results for each company before Jan 31st.

Apple reports in September, but another company might report in February. So it's ranking on the list would be based on its figures for the previous year.

Still, revenue is a much more reliable indicator of size than market cap, which can vanish overnight. Sometimes quite small companies can have huge stock market valuations. Microsoft was for years the most valuable company in America, despite never getting inside the Fortune top 30.

The convention is to speak of size in terms of annual revenue, or turnover. IF you confuse share valuation with size you encourage all sorts of bubbly thinking. Irish business journalists of all people should be encouraged to learn the difference.

galljga1

Alibaba is approx the same size as Wal-Mart by market cap but yeah, it could very well be the biggest one day.

Madd Finn

I give up.

Less than a decade after we went belly up because our banks didn't understand the difference between real and stock-market values and some chumps, including business journalists who really should have been FORCED to know better just don't get it.

Apple is NOT the biggest company in the world. Neither is Ali Baba. I don't know who is. But Wal-Mart are the biggest in the US. At the moment.

How hard can it be? :mad::mad:

galljga1

Madd Finn wrote: »

I give up.

Less than a decade after we went belly up because our banks didn't understand the difference between real and stock-market values and some chumps, including business journalists who really should have been FORCED to know better just don't get it.

Apple is NOT the biggest company in the world. Neither is Ali Baba. I don't know who is. But Wal-Mart are the biggest in the US. At the moment.

How hard can it be? :mad::mad:

There are numerous ways of measuring a company's size: revenue, profit , market cap, number of employees to name a few. You have a preference for revenue. The fact is that Apple is the biggest company in the world by Market Cap, probably damn close to the top based on profitability and probably in the top 10 based on assets if we leave banks out of it as their asset declaration normally include assets under management which are not actually theirs.

Overheal

You could also judge a company by net assets - it might have massive capital investments and otherwise not cycle through huge piles of money. eg. Intel has $55bn revenue but $92bn in assets like production facilities; whereas Best Buy is a retailer, it's job is to push money around /w only $14bn in assets and revenues of $42 bn. Going by that standard, banks have net assets measured in trillions.