Fortune’s 500 is a ranking every company wants to be in, and the big companies usually do, but the fun of the list is who comes up on top of who.
In the latest edition of the list, released on Monday, Samsung came up on top of Apple with a whopping $178.6 billion in revenue, a little over $20 billion compared to Apple’s no less impressive $156.5 billion. Although they’re both way behind the number one on the list, Royal Dutch Shell with an even more impressive revenue of $481.7 billion.
However, Apple made $41.7 billion in profit, making it the second place on the list only behind ExxonMobil, that’s more than double of Samsung’s $20.6 billion.
Both companies gained a few positions in the list, with Samsung taking the 14th spot (from 20th last year) and Apple making it to the 19th position way above the 55th position from last year. Google is way behind in the list at the 189th position with a revenue of $52.2 billion.
Apple can’t be too happy about this, with Google passing it in some measurements as most valuable company and now Samsung beating it by 5 places in Fortune’s 500 list.
Samsung and Apple compete much more directly than Apple and Google in my opinion, even if Google is the one behind Android, Samsung is the one selling phones and tablets to the people and taking mind share away from Apple. Google seems to be playing with the long-run in mind, while they don’t make the same amount of money as the other one right now, behind the best and only at online services make it the most future-proof of all.
Let’s be perfectly clear about one thing, I’m sure some fans and haters of each company will use this in some argument somewhere in the world, but the truth is that both companies made a ton of money and they are both leading the tech industry when it comes to consumer products. Even Google’s position is meaningless when you consider how much money are they making and how they’re viewed by the users. Let’s not blow this out of proportion and give every company the respect they deserve, even if we don’t like how they do business.