This article is more than 1 year old

IT outfits creep up Fortune 500

They mostly did better, but autos and oil still hold the top slots

By and large, IT companies have moved up the latest Fortune 500 while oil companies and sugar water companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola have gone down. Ranked in order of 1998 sales, General Motors still tops the list, with Ford second and Wal-Mart third, displacing Exxon to fourth. General Electric comes fifth ($100.5 billion revenue), and the lowest qualifier had revenue of $2.896 billion. In 1998, profits for the 500 fell 1.8 per cent, while revenue growth was down to 4 per cent from 7.5 per cent. The list is of course of US companies. The following list pulls out the IT companies - the number in parentheses is the ranking for last year: 6 IBM (6) No change here 15 HP (15) Also no change 28 Compaq (42) Up thanks to Digital of course 33 Lucent (37) As expected - the telecom sector has done well 34 Motorola (29) Not exactly a surprise it moved down 40 Intel (38) Only a small gain 55 Ingram Micro (79) That's a big leap up 78 Dell (125) Another big gain 90 EDS (88) No tears about this 109 Microsoft (137) But will the rise last for ever? 135 US West (new to list) This was a spectacular gain for the Baby Bell and cable operator 164 Sun (184) A tidy gain 223 Gateway 2000 (262) A good performance 273 Apple (223) A disaster, but next year should do better 303 3Com (329) Up, but the profits are the problem 307 CompUSA (329) 335 Computer Associates (369) 343 Merisel (368) 470 Silicon Graphics (399) At this rate it will exit the list next year 487 Micron Technology (413) It does not always pay to be Microsoft's friend ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like