Apple Tops 'World's Most Admired Company' List for 17th Consecutive Year

[MacRumors]

Apple's iron-clad grasp on the top spot of Fortune's "World's Most Admired Companies" shows no signs of weakening, with the tech giant finishing ahead of the 300+ pack for the 17th consecutive year.

Apple was placed above Microsoft in second place, followed by Amazon in third. All three companies have rounded out the top three for the fifth year in a row. Notably, Nvidia, whose GPU chips are powering servers for generative AI around the world, soared to its highest-ever ranking at number 10.

Fortune ranks companies through a collection of "key attributes of reputation," such as innovation, quality of management, social responsibility, use of corporate assets, financial soundness, quality of products and services, and global competitiveness. Apple topped the list in every category.

As it has in the past, Fortune collaborated with partner Korn Ferry on its survey of corporate reputations.

To select our 50 All-Stars, Korn Ferry asked 3,720 executives, directors, and securities analysts who had responded to the industry surveys to select the 10 companies they admired most. They chose from a list made up of the companies that ranked in the top 25% in last year’s surveys, plus those that finished in the top 20% of their industry. Anyone could vote for any company in any industry.

To see the full ranking of the World's Most Admired Companies, visit Fortune's website.

Article Link: Apple Tops 'World's Most Admired Company' List for 17th Consecutive Year

 

[japanime]

Forbes must regard us proles as fools. This has nothing to do with "innovation" or "social responsibility" or any of the other feelgood phrases they attach to this list.

All you need to do is look at the Top 10 and realize that the real, unspoken reason these companies are "most admired" is because they are making the billionaire class more and more money. 🤣

 

[yellow8]

I think it's well-deserved, even though one might always find room for improvement, it's globally ok.
IMHO.

 

[bcomer]

Please fix the Sonoma issues and we might like you again! For example, Mac Pro SSD/PCI card mounting issues. This is a foundation issue affecting many users.

This is just embarrassing for a company of this size - we do not need more emojis 🤬

 

[WarmWinterHat]

This is just embarrassing for a company of this size - we do not need more emojis 🤬

You need to tell that to Unicode. Apple doesn't decide to make new ones, they are just following Unicode guidelines so iPhone users don't end up with blank squares when another platform uses a new Emoji.

About Emoji

About Emoji 92% of the world’s online population use emoji in their communications – and Unicode defines the characters that make those human connections possible. These 3,600+ emoji represent faces, weather, vehicles

home.unicode.org

 

[seggy]

The fact that Amazon is third speaks volumes about what kind of techbro definition of Admired it is here

 

[wanha]

There are many things to admire about Apple, such as the quality of their products, their stance on privacy (imperfect but better than their competitors), and their success.

But it feels developer relations is getting worse each year, and it's something Apple could easily remedy if they only realized they are in a symbiosis with developers rather than an outright competition.

I don't think Apple executives realize just how much good will they have sacrificed over the past 5+ years with their App Store policies, and one day, they are going to be blindsided by some legislation they totally brought on themselves.

 

[klasma]

...most admired among "executives, directors, and securities analysts". They probably admire its stock performance first and foremost.

 

[klasma]

You need to tell that to Unicode. Apple doesn't decide to make new ones, they are just following Unicode guidelines so iPhone users don't end up with blank squares when another platform uses a new Emoji.

The chair and co-chair of the Unicode emoji subcommittee are Apple employees. Telling Apple or telling Unicode therefore doesn't make that much of a difference regarding emoji. And certainly that is no coincidence.

 

[wanha]

...most admired among "executives, directors, and securities analysts". They probably admire its stock performance first and foremost.

I would imagine they admire not just the results, but also the professionalism and structures that Apple has in place that allow them to do so.

A friend of mine who is in finance and is not a big Apple fan admires the efficient machine Apple has built over the past 20+ years.

 

[neuropsychguy]

This ranking can't be right. Apple is one of the least admired companies, per the comments from some on MacRumors. Those commenters surely know more than the "3,720 executives, directors, and securities analysts" who were surveyed.

 

[SpanishAppleNerd]

As a PhD student in corporate social responsibility, I can confidently say.... WTF PEOPLE
how can Apple boast about sustainability when it disregards pro consumer features like repairability

 

[neuropsychguy]

The chair and co-chair of the Unicode emoji subcommittee are Apple employees. Telling Apple or telling Unicode therefore doesn't make that much of a difference regarding emoji. And certainly that is no coincidence.

The chair of the emoji subcommittee works for "a small ad company called Google": https://unicode.org/consortium/techchairs.html

 

[klasma]

This ranking can't be right. Apple is one of the least admired companies, per the comments from some on MacRumors. Those commenters surely know more than the "3,720 executives, directors, and securities analysts" who were surveyed.

Admiration is quite subjective, who'd have thought.

 

[klasma]

The chair of the emoji subcommittee works for "a small ad company called Google": https://unicode.org/consortium/techchairs.html

Ah, they must have switched it recently, I had looked it up last year. Well, the two smartphone OS companies are taking turns.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Admitation is quite subjective, who'd have thought.

It certainly is. However, this site attracts both people who really like Apple and people who hate Apple and who comment online. This makes subjective comments here highly unrepresentative of the general population. While the methods for the survey Korn Ferry conducted are not particularly impressive, they are a better representation of broader opinions (specifically of business leaders) than commenters here (including me).

 

[GMShadow]

Please fix the Sonoma issues and we might like you again! For example, Mac Pro SSD/PCI card mounting issues. This is a foundation issue affecting many users.

This is just embarrassing for a company of this size - we do not need more emojis 🤬

The people adding emoji are not the same engineers working on technical issues.

They also may not be for you, but they’re a great way to get casual users to update their software, which is why Apple makes them a highlight feature as needed. Security patches just aren’t attractive in the way being able to send new emoji is.

 

[Abazigal]

This ranking can't be right. Apple is one of the least admired companies, per the comments from some on MacRumors. Those commenters surely know more than the "3,720 executives, directors, and securities analysts" who were surveyed.

Sure they do. They have only been wrong about Apple since like … forever?

 

[krspkbl]

my opinion of apple has fallen quit a bit recently. i get they are major multi trillion $ company but they work so hard against giving users freedom and treat us like dummies where they think they know best and need to hold our hands. i know it's all about money at the end of the day...

they were forced to adopt USB-C and they are being forced to open up the app store and implement sideloading. USB-C and sideloading should be standard across all products (not just apple) and it is with most companies and their products but apple are holding out as they want to wring us dry of every penny/cent we're worth and maintain absolute control over how we can use our products we paid for. apple products have always been expensive but it's getting silly now and yes i know everyone is dealing with inflation.

i like Apple products but i think once it's time to upgrade my phone i'll be going back to Android. Upgrading my phone is a long time away as I have a 15 Pro Max but it makes me question if I want to go deeper into this ecosystem. I really want a Mac but every single time over the last decade that a new Mac comes out that I'm interested in there is ALWAYS something that puts me off it.

I need to see if Apple is going to bring an open app store with sideloading support to the UK or if the government is going to force them. They need to do much better with AI so hopefully iOS18 looks promising. I'm waiting for a 15" MacBook Air with M3 but I'm also waiting to see what it is this time that makes me think "yeah i'm not buying this". pitiful offerings of 8GB as base needs to stop.

i'm sure many will think "well just go back to android then!" but again i do like Apple products (i love my iPhone and Watch) and have explained why many times on here. I'm just not sure if I want to support them much longer right now. Maybe things will change in the next 2-3 years and they'll convince me to stay or go deeper into their products. Right now I'm only kinda dipping my toes in. I'd like a new Mac, iPad, Apple TV...but we'll see.

 

[mihighil]

What i admire most about apple is the 200$ for 8 extra gigabytes of ram, how can you not admire that? 🥴🥴🥴

 

[aj_niner]

Many MR users will whine about the state of the Mac and especially the Mac Pro.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

What i admire most about apple is the 200$ for 8 extra gigabytes of ram, how can you not admire that? 🥴🥴🥴

It's top of the line RAM, like Caviar, you can buy cheap Caviar or the best, although all may come from the same place... 🤣

 

[twintin]

In the list of most admired company by EU and competitors like Epic Game and Spotify they Apple is at last place. 🙂

 

[macmedal]

Korn Ferry asked 3,720 executives, directors, and securities analysts who had responded to the industry surveys to select the 10 companies they admired most.

So let's approach the people that make the most money in the world to list the companies they admire most. Hardly an objective survey to make it the "world's most admired company".

The fact that Nvidea has climbed the ladder just indicates to me, the consumer, what this list represents. Let us admire the best business models, that make the most money, by fleecing the consumer every which way.

The way the world's going, the average consumer is not going to be able to afford any new tech and then they will be scratching their heads as to why their profits have plunged.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

This ranking can't be right. Apple is one of the least admired companies, per the comments from some on MacRumors. Those commenters surely know more than the "3,720 executives, directors, and securities analysts" who were surveyed.

Considering Apple was in a deep doomed abyss, and started to climb out with the release of the iPod.
It was 2006 when they released the first Mac-Intel and that was their ticket out.
I used to dislike Apple until Microsoft double-slapped everyone with Windows ME and Vista, crashing for no reason at all at the worse possible time of a working day. It was either my liver or my desk I was going to break in anger.
Tried Unix, and Linux for a while, but it was an incomplete experience.
So a friend who got a Mac showed me Final Cut Pro and After Effects and made me curious about it.
In 2007, when Leopard (?) was released I bought my first Mac, a 17" MacBook Pro, with the condition that if I didn't like it I was going to return it and get a PC Laptop.
Coming from the world of D.O.S., Windows, OS/2, Unix and Linux, I still admire Apple for what they did to that BSD core to turn it into the macOS we have today.