HQ: US
Age of company: 13 years
No of employees: 15,724
Facebook was founded in 2004 after a college experiment. In September 2016 it had 1.79 billion daily active users, approximately 85% of whom were outside the US and Canada.
6. Amazon
HQ: US
Age of company: 22 years
No of employees: 222,400
Amazon has enjoyed a meteoric rise since it was founded in a garage in 1995. It started as an online bookshop, but now delivers everything from tea bags to shoes. Last year, when Amazon’s site went down for 49 minutes, the company missed out on estimated sales of $5.7 million.
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5. Exxon Mobil
HQ: US
Age of company: 135 years
No of employees: 73,500
The world’s largest oil and gas company has dropped from number one last year to number five. The company was formed in 1999 when two giants, Exxon and Mobil, merged their businesses.
4. Berkshire Hathaway
HQ: US
Age of company: 128 years
No of employees: 360,000.
The largest company on the list not involved in technology has its origins as far back as 1888 as a textile company. It is now a holding company with interests a wide variety of sectors including utilities, railroads and insurance companies. It is part owned by well-known investor Warren Buffet.
3. Microsoft
HQ: US
Age of company: 42 years
No of employees: 114,000
Apple’s most famous rival Microsoft also started in a garage, where Bill Gates and Paul Allen put together their first computer. Microsoft was officially founded in 1975, a year earlier than Apple.
2. Alphabet
HQ: US
Age of company: 2 years
No of employees: 69,953
Alphabet has a much more famous subsidiary, Google. Alphabet, founded in 2015 by the same people who started Google, is a collection of companies with interests in many sectors including medical research and wearable technology
1. Apple
HQ: US
Age of company: 41 years
Number of employees: 66,000
The first Apple computer was built in Steve Jobs’ parents’ garage. Apple has an estimated net worth of $605 billion, and is often called the world’s most valuable company. In 2016, however, it had to contend with falling sales of the iPhone.
