“For the fourth straight year, Apple tops Fortune’s Most Admired list. The company’s blistering pace of new product releases has continued to set the bar high for tech companies across the board,” Shelley DuBois reports for Fortune.
“Apple took a stock hit when iconic CEO Steve Jobs announced in January that he’d be taking a second medical leave, two years after receiving a liver transplant during a six-month sabbatical,” DuBois reports. “But Jobs assured the market in the company’s recent earnings report that Apple was still ‘firing on all cylinders.'”
“It certainly appears to be. Apple nearly doubled its quarterly profits vs. a year ago,” DuBois reports. “The iPad 2 was introduced in March, marking the second generation of one of Apple’s milestone product successes. And Jobs made a surprise appearance at the launch.”
DuBois reports, “Another huge move by Apple was the announcement this January that the iPhone 4 would be available from Verizon, offering another option to consumers frustrated with dropped calls on AT&T.”
The Top 10:
1. Apple
2. Google
3. Berkshire Hathaway
4. Southwest Airlines
5. Procter & Gamble
6. Coca-Cola
7. Amazon.com
8. FedEx
9. Microsoft
10. McDonald’s
See the full list of 50 companies here.
I just have two words to say about that….Duhhhhhh!
Oh…and…How the heck does Microsoft make the list. People admire a Market cap drop of $600b down to 250b?
For most of those companies, what have you done lately ?
McDonald’s , Microsoft, Google ? They have plenty of crap in their recent history.
McDonald’s ? puhleeze
A bunch of executives, directors and analysts gets to cast votes for each other. What a nice little capitalist parlour game! “Oo, I ADMIRE you for making so much money off of low-paid workers!” “No, no, I really admire YOU for making so much money off of degrading the environment!” Good to know.
Proctor and Gamble should be number 2 – at least out of the ones on the list.
McDonald’s has apparently put wifi in some of their locations and new flat screen TV’s.
Yeah. I really admire the great Mac. I wish to buy a macbook next year. =)