SHOOT: Think Wal-Mart at number 2 is going to stay there for much longer? Think again. Any warehouse-on-wheels company (this includes courier companies) relies on cheap energy to be profitable. Over the long term cheap energy is not possible. All the industries that require cheap energy (this includes accessories to these industries, including transport, mechanised food production, suburbia and property markets based on car ownership) are simply going to dimish rapidly.
Fortune's closely watched list, released Sunday, ranked companies by their revenue in 2008. Irving, Texas-based Exxon took in $442.85 billion in revenue last year, up almost 19 percent from 2007. The company also raked in the biggest annual profit, earning $45.2 billion.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart had held the top spot for six of the last seven years but fell to No. 2 this year. Still, the retail giant's 2008 revenue climbed 7 percent to $405.6 billion, as the battered economy sent more consumers searching for bargains. The world's largest retailer took in $13.4 billion in annual profit, an increase of about 5 percent.
Although it may have been a good year for Exxon and Wal-Mart, 2008 was far from rosy for most of remaining companies on the list. Overall earnings plunged 85 percent to $98.9 billion from $645 billion in 2007, the biggest one-year decline in the 55-year history of the Fortune 500 list.
"America is getting used to the sound of bubbles bursting," Fortune said.
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