Apple ranked world's most admired company for 16th consecutive year

Apple cutout outside Apple Store
(Image credit: Future)

Apple has once again been voted as the world's most admired company according to a Fortune list that saw Amazon and Microsoft round out the top three.

Apple has found itself sitting pretty at the very top of the pile once again, a feat that makes this the 16th consecutive year that the iPhone maker has proven to be the one others aspire to be like.

The rest of the top ten was made up of financial institutions, medical outfits, and other technology companies. Including more than a few that Apple is itself in direct competition with.

Top spot. Again.

The Fortune list was based on a poll of 3,700 corporate executives, directors, and analysts the company says.

While Apple was again at the top, the rest of the most admired companies in the world also makes for interesting reading given some of the names involved.

  1. Apple
  2. Amazon
  3. Microsoft
  4. Berkshire Hathaway
  5. JPMorgan Chase
  6. Walt Disney
  7. Costco Wholesale
  8. Pfizer
  9. Alphabet
  10. American Express

Most notable is the collection of Apple's competition that starts with Amazon and continues with Microsoft, Disney, and Alphabet. There's an argument to be made that Apple's continued foray into the world of finance could also put American Express on that list, too.

As for the others, Amazon has music and streaming services that compete with Apple Music and Apple TV Plus, for example. Microsoft has long been a big player in Apple's history, while Google-owning Alphabet is another. Walt Disney's Disney Plus streaming service is also one that Apple will have its eye on, too.

With Apple making the top spot its own for so long, the obvious question is whether it can continue to maintain it. Time will of course tell, and with Apple readying its best iPhones yet, not to mention the rumored mixed reality headset, 2023 is already shaping up to be a big one for the company.

Could either of those two products be enough to help push Apple to the number-one spot again in 2024?

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.