“With world oil prices high, the energy sector’s strong showing in this year’s ranking of the BusinessWeek 50 comes as no surprise. But a host of companies—from Apple to Staples—have scored big by using technology, design, or clever marketing to build intense customer loyalty,” BusinessWeek writes. “Methodology: how we measured the Top 50: One of the BusinessWeek 50’s main goals is to capture the dynamic nature of strong growth. That’s reflected in how we identify the best of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. We use 10 performance metrics, starting with sales and earnings growth. We tally both for the most recent 12-month and three-year periods, to reward companies that prosper over time. This year, for the first time, we include long-term earnings prospects. We factor in net profit margins. And finally we account for the market’s view, by measuring total shareholder returns for one- and three-year periods. We weight the results for sales volume, because it’s harder for large companies to post impressive revenue- and profit-growth figures. And we factor in the debt-to-capital ratio, to recognize clean balance sheets. That also makes it harder for corporations to qualify with growth that’s primarily the result of debt-laden acquisitions.”
The Top 10 of The 2006 BusinessWeek 50:
1. Apple Computer (2005 Rank: 14) – All those little white earbuds are a bona fide cultural phenomenon —and serious business for Apple. Booming sales of its iPod music players have propelled the Cupertino (Calif.) icon to the top of our list of the best corporate performers. Apple shows few signs of slowing down. Of the 42 million iPods sold since the line was introduced five years ago, 32 million were sold in 2005, including 14 million in a killer Christmas quarter. Apple’s profits leapt 216% in 2005 on a 66% jump in sales. Investors are still bullish, not only for what Steve Jobs has done, but also for what lies ahead. Jobs, soon to be the biggest shareholder in Walt Disney Co. thanks to its recent purchase of his Pixar Animation Studios, has inked landmark deals with TV studios and other Old Media powers. If Apple can extend its portable music dominance into the living room, its remarkable recovery might have far to run.
2. WellPoint
3. Caremark Rx
4. UnitedHealth Group
5. Schlumberger
6. Occidental Petroleum
7. Halliburton
8. Qualcomm
9. Amgen
10. Aetna
Other companies of interest in the top 50:
13. Motorola
14. Yahoo!
19. Best Buy
25. Intel
34. Microsoft
Full article here.
Advertisements:
• Apple’s brand new iPod Hi-Fi speaker system. Home stereo. Reinvented. Available now for $349 with free shipping.
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• MacBook Pro. The first Mac notebook built upon Intel Core Duo with iLife ’06, Front Row and built-in iSight. Starting at $1999. Free shipping.
• iMac. Twice as amazing — Intel Core Duo, iLife ’06, Front Row media experience, Apple Remote, built-in iSight. Starting at $1299. Free shipping.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
me
first post
Now we just want this to help bring on the little leap in Mac marketshare to circa 12%. After that, the other 88% can continue to live with that other obscenity..Windows, I won’t care.
Nice to see the stock going up instead of down.
WHAT? BusinessWeek didn’t use their fantastic poll from last week in the computations? Wonder why not?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”ohh” style=”border:0;” />
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/businessweek_poll_will_you_buy_an_apple_mac_due_to_microsoft_vista_delay/
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/polls/bw_live_results.asp?displayFormat=vote&poll_id=2006032221444214462
Now let’s convince Adobe that Mac users matter. Product parity now. Show Chizen a thing or two about Kaizen.
I’m gonna pee in my panties!
BusinessWeek gets it. I wonder how many investors read Businuess Week?
If possible, grab the last BusnessWeek podcast for more information.
Fo shizzle, Biotch!
Where’s Dell?
Gotta love to see Apple topping that list.
All the while making me vomit to see Halliburton in the top 10, but no surprise.
Sony should be #1. God my Vaio is awesome!
The fact that Microsoft even made the list (#34) shows that you can’t take this list all that seriously. I guess you have to be an even dumber bastard to not see the quality of Apple.
I’m more concerned/bothered about Halliburton being on the list than Microsoft but don’t want to get too OT. Other than that, go Apple!
“Sony should be #1. God my Vaio is awesome!”
roflmao!
that poll buriedcaesar linked to is kind of funny. how many people of that 72% do you think already OWN a mac, or are the goofy mac zealot people that make REGULAR mac users look bad?
anyhow, it’d be nice to see someone mention, ya know, MACS, instead of just ipods, when they talk about apple and success in the same sentence.
COMPLETELY unrelated but i thought i’d share just because i’m excited about it and it may be useful info for some of you:
if you’re using an older powerbook g3 or g4 and want 802.11g, go with the belkin f5d7010. you can get it at wal-mart for $35 and mac os x thinks it’s an airport extreme card!
sorry to sound like an advertisement. =)
Anonmous-
“I’m more concerned/bothered about Halliburton being on the list”
I’ll be buying more Halliburton. Anything connected with America’s oil obsession should be a stable investment over the next 5 years.
If the US was serious about dropping our addiction, then the policy makers should start pushing VIABLE (this excludes most renewables) such as Nuclear energy.
Until Fusion comes on line, Nuclear is the only REALISTIC option that could possibly meet the needs of the US energy requirements.
Hydrogen Cars?!? What a load of crap. You still need to make the Hydrogen and that takes energy.
S
“You still need to make the Hydrogen and that takes energy.”
That’s true, but energy can be produced in many different ways.
Yesterday, I was reading this article about how Iceland is proposing to extract energy from volcanic activity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4846574.stm
It says … “The vision is to use this cheap and carbon-free energy to split water, to yield hydrogen that could be despatched around the world in tankers. “
There are other schemes elsewhere in the world where renewable energy will allow hydrogen production. All of these schemes are unlikely to do much in the short term, but may offer hope for the future.