DELL is now number 78 in the Fortune 500, vice 125.
They are now a FORTUNE 100 company!!!!
DELL is on sale. Get it while it's hot.
Fez
courtesy of +FezKoprucu
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Profits for Fortune 500 Firms Dip
By DONNA MURPHY WESTON
NEW YORK (AP) -- Internet companies may dominate the news these days, but
they have a ways to go to be a factor in the Fortune 500.
Fortune magazine's annual ranking of publicly traded U.S. companies according
to revenue was topped for the 11th straight year by General Motors, which took in
$161.3 billion in 1998.
Among the Internet companies, America Online came closest to making the list,
coming in at No. 535 with $2.6 billion in revenue. The company that ranked No.
500, container maker Ball Corp., had nearly $2.9 billion in revenue, according to
the list released today.
While the stock prices of Internet darlings such as auctioneer eBay and retailer
Amazon.com have given them market capitalizations surpassing many Fortune
500 firms, they have yet to generate significant revenues, let alone profits.
Still, Fortune said 1998 would likely mark the beginning of the end of the
dominance of blue chips such as General Motors and Coca-Cola. Younger
high-tech companies such as Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Dell, with their
surging revenues, are wielding more influence in corporate America.
''(1998) will probably be considered a watershed year, the year when the New
Economy fundamentally parted ways with the old and high-tech consolidated its
role as the driving force behind the growth of big business.''
Cisco jumped 61 slots from No. 253 to 192, while Dell Computer shot up from No.
125 to 78. Microsoft, which is the top U.S. company in terms of market value, is
ranked 109, up from 137 last year.
Overall, profits at the Fortune 500 companies declined for the first time in seven
years in 1998 as U.S. companies suffered the effects of the economic crisis in Asia,
Russia and Latin America.
Profits fell 1.8 percent last year, compared to 7.8 percent earnings growth in 1997.
Revenue growth shrank to 4 percent from 8.7 percent in 1997 as U.S. companies
found demand for their products and services stifled by the ongoing financial
problems overseas.
GM is followed by Ford with $144.4 billion, Wal-Mart with $139.2 billion, Exxon with
$101.7 billion and General Electric with $100.5 billion.
IBM was sixth with $81.7 billion, followed by Citigroup with $76.4 billion, Philip
Morris with $57.8 billion, Boeing with $56.1 billion and AT&T with $53.6 billion.
Chrysler, a perennial top-10 finisher, disappeared from the list as its merger with
Daimler-Benz, made it a foreign company and therefore ineligible.
Several other megamergers shook up the rankings, with no less than 33 of the 47
new arrivals reaching the list by way of a merger, the magazine said.
Among the largest deals were the Citibank-Travelers Group combination that
propelled Citigroup into the No. 7 slot from Citibank's 1997 rank of 21 and the
merger with MCI that sent WorldCom from No. 210 to No. 80.
Forty-seven companies were bumped from the list. Two of the most notable were
Reader's Digest, which fell from No. 490 to 529, and Borden, which slipped from
414 to 585.
The biggest employer among the 500 was Wal-Mart with 910,000 workers,
followed by GM with 594,000.
AP-NY-04-04-99 1940EDT |
