Apple jumps to #6 spot in new Fortune 500 rankings

iphone user

You wouldn’t know it by reading through the latest tech news headlines, but Apple is on track to have another stellar year. It’s already recorded two record-breaking quarters, and it has yet to launch a new or refreshed product.

But not everyone is ignoring Apple’s success. Fortune today released its annual, high-profile “Fortune 500” list of the largest companies in the United States. And the iPad-maker has risen up several spots from last year, to #6…

From Fortune’s 500 listing:

Apple is bigger than ever — the company cracked the Fortune 10 this year. But it’s a high-pressure job, being king of the hill. At Apple’s press event this past October, it maintained more than disrupted with its software upgrades and iPad mini announcement. Also, this past year has seen a lot of CEO Tim Cook having to apologize — once in September for the failure of Apple’s maps app, and then to Chinese consumers this April for slow repair services — this in a market that Cook said this past January would be Apple’s largest. Still, when every executive wants to invent the iPod of ___, Apple remains an innovation icon.

As for the rest of the list, Wal-Mart beat out ExxonMobile for this year’s top spot, with Chevron, Phillips 66, and Berkshire Hathaway finishing in 3rd, 4th and 5th place respectively. That’s in revenue, where Apple did $156 billion last year.

Looking at profits, though, it was a different story. Apple ranked second in profits last year among Fortune 500 firms, at $41.7 billion, losing out to only ExxonMobil. Tim Cook did say the only companies doing better than Apple pumped oil.

And it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, either. Last month, Cook told investors that Apple had some amazing new products and services coming this fall, among which are expected to be new smartphonestablets and maybe a watch.