'Top 100 Global Technology Leaders' list places Apple in sixth behind Microsoft, Alphabet
Apple has been included in Thomson Reuters' list of the 'Top 100 Global Tech Leaders,' with the iPhone producer put into sixth place in the rankings of firms identified as 'the industry's most operationally sound and financially successful operations.'
The top position on the list is occupied by Microsoft, followed by chip producer Intel and Cisco in second and third places respectively. IBM landed in fourth place, while Alphabet was given fifth place ahead of Apple's sixth.
The remaining top 10 firms behind Apple include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing in seventh place, Germany's SAP in eighth, Texas Instruments in ninth, and Ireland's Accenture in tenth. Of the top ten, seven are based in the United States, including all of the top six listed firms.
The list was compiled using an approach developed by Thompson Reuters Labs, using a 28-data-point algorithm that measures performance across eight areas: Financial, Management and Investor Confidence, Risk and Resilience, Legal Compliance, Innovation, People and Social Responsibility, Environmental Impact, and Reputation.
For example, the Financial Performance pillar examines the asset worth, free cash flow per employee, EBITDA-based leverage, operating income margin, three-year revenue growth, and return on invested capital to determine how well the company is doing. Legal Compliance takes into account a firm's average level of litigation per year, as well as the company's capacity to produce quality goods and services that integrate a customer's health and safety, integrity, and data privacy.
While Thompson does offer rankings for the top 10, it does not do so for the rest of the top 100 firms included in the list, though it does identify the included firms. Individual scores for each firm are also not provided.
Thomson Reuters' analysis into the list reveals 45 of the 100 firms are headquartered in the United States, followed by Japan and Taiwan with 13 listed companies each, and then India with five. The list does not include any companies based in Africa, Eurasia, South America, and Antarctica, noting these regions are still emerging in terms of the tech leadership.
Apple regularly features at the higher end of lists such as these, with the company declared the most valuable brand for the fifth consecutive year in September last year, while in July it topped Fortune's annual rankings of U.S. companies in terms of profitability.
The top position on the list is occupied by Microsoft, followed by chip producer Intel and Cisco in second and third places respectively. IBM landed in fourth place, while Alphabet was given fifth place ahead of Apple's sixth.
The remaining top 10 firms behind Apple include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing in seventh place, Germany's SAP in eighth, Texas Instruments in ninth, and Ireland's Accenture in tenth. Of the top ten, seven are based in the United States, including all of the top six listed firms.
The list was compiled using an approach developed by Thompson Reuters Labs, using a 28-data-point algorithm that measures performance across eight areas: Financial, Management and Investor Confidence, Risk and Resilience, Legal Compliance, Innovation, People and Social Responsibility, Environmental Impact, and Reputation.
For example, the Financial Performance pillar examines the asset worth, free cash flow per employee, EBITDA-based leverage, operating income margin, three-year revenue growth, and return on invested capital to determine how well the company is doing. Legal Compliance takes into account a firm's average level of litigation per year, as well as the company's capacity to produce quality goods and services that integrate a customer's health and safety, integrity, and data privacy.
While Thompson does offer rankings for the top 10, it does not do so for the rest of the top 100 firms included in the list, though it does identify the included firms. Individual scores for each firm are also not provided.
Thomson Reuters' analysis into the list reveals 45 of the 100 firms are headquartered in the United States, followed by Japan and Taiwan with 13 listed companies each, and then India with five. The list does not include any companies based in Africa, Eurasia, South America, and Antarctica, noting these regions are still emerging in terms of the tech leadership.
Apple regularly features at the higher end of lists such as these, with the company declared the most valuable brand for the fifth consecutive year in September last year, while in July it topped Fortune's annual rankings of U.S. companies in terms of profitability.
Comments
The only thing I can figure is that Apple took hits in two of the 7 categories while being at the very top of the other 5. Those two being "Legal compliance" including "Average litigation per year in areas of employment/labor, intellectual property, commercial law and contracts, civil rights, and unfair competition" and "Risk & resilience" where "number of suppliers" and "supply chain risks" are obviously major on-going concerns for Apple. But, as I said, Apple is top-notch is the other 5 categories. Weight the factors differently and I have doubt that the ranking changes substantially--with Apple always in the top 5 or 6.
One has to wonder how "political" the process of developing this report was. Perhaps someone thought they could sell more (of whatever they are selling) if the results were somewhat surprising.
FTFY.
I mean in the 80s, Microsoft's R&D expenditure solely consisted of a subscription to MacWorld.
That really made me laugh! Thanks!!
And that's where things begin to fall apart. Spending more doesn't mean doing more.
For all the spending and "innovation" from Google, what do we have? A whole bunch of failed moon-shot projects. Google Glass crashed and burned, Barges that were beached, the first true Google Phone - the Pixel (after all the "first true" Google Phones that were named Nexus) struggling to gain traction, etc.
As for Microsoft, their innovation is all surface level. The Surface Studio that was hailed as cutting-edge revolutionary looks to be totally blindsided by the iMac Pros. They completely missed out on the smart phone bandwagon.
In terms of actual innovative products, Apple came out with the AirPods, the iPhone X and the Apple Watch. In terms of cutting-edge, they came out with the iMac Pros.
That's why I take these articles with a grain of salt, irrespective of whether Apple is at #1 or #100 on the list.
Which is why my comment passed no judgement one way or the other. It was just an assessment of the empirical data. The criteria for the Innovation category made it not the strongest category for Apple. That's just fact. The majority of the stuff you're talking about was completely irrelevant regarding the criteria for judgement.