One month ago, Fortune celebrated the milestone of publishing the Fortune 500 for the 70th consecutive year. But what many readers today may not realize is that the ranking as it appeared in its early years is not completely analogous to the ranking of today.
That’s not because the businesses that made up the 500 back in 1955 are obsolete. In fact, as we highlighted last month, 49 companies have made the Fortune 500 all 70 years. Instead, a changing business landscape has precipitated a major shift. The first edition of the ranking appeared in 1955 as a list of America’s largest industrial corporations by revenue . Then, the following year, Fortune produced a sub-list of non-industrial companies to acknowledge those the main list overlooked.
In 1983, Fortune began generating a separate Service 500 list (containing banks, utility companies, and more) in addition to the main list. But its methodology differed from that of the Fortune 500. Companies in sectors such as financial services were ranked by the size of their assets, while those in other categories (transportation, retail) stacked up based on their revenues. It wasn’t until 1995 that Fortune combined industrial and service corporations on the same list for the first time. That means that the 2024 list , published June 4, marks the 30th edition of that hybrid list.
Thomas A. Stewart, the Fortune editor who wrote the 1995 essay introducing the list’s new methodology, “A New 500 for the New Economy,” emphasized that “the digital revolution has made the distinction between manufacturing and services increasingly theoretical: When industrial and service companies compete, they ought to be ranked against one another.”
“The distinction is fading as fast as a tan line in September,” he joked a few paragraphs later. Among the examples he offered, he noted that “software manufacturers offer personal-finance services, airlines sell mutual funds, automakers write insurance.”
From 1994 to 1995, before and after the shift, the top three companies on the list were identical: General Motors was No. 1, Ford Motor was No. 2, and Exxon was No. 3. (General Motors was also No. 1 on the first-ever Fortune 500 , in 1955.) However, three newcomers debuted within the top 10 on the list: Wal-Mart Stores was No. 4, AT&T was No. 5, and Sears Roebuck was No. 9.
Many companies that joined the list back in 1995 still appear prominently on it today; others (like Sears) have vanished from the ranking entirely. But the shift in scope of the list back then paved the way for the ranking as we know it in the 21st century. Read on for more details about the Fortune 500 of 1995 vs. today.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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