Apple tops Fortune's Most Admired Companies list again

For the third year in a row, Apple has topped the list of Fortune's Most Admired Companies. The list was based on a poll of 4,200 executives across the world's top companies, and by the highest margin ever, they picked the Cupertino-based "mobile device company" as the world's most admired brand. Obviously the millions of MacBooks, iPhones, and iPods played a factor, but it sounds like the iPad sealed the deal this year. BMW's CEO is quoted waxing poetic about Apple's brand power: "The whole world held its breath before the iPad was announced. That's brand management at its very best."

GE has actually had the most appearances at number one on the list, and Apple needs to stay high for two more years to take that record. But it's certainly possible -- if the iPad is as popular as expected, and Apple follows it up next year with an updated version and the kind of software revolution that the iPhone brought to handheld computing, they probably will nail down the top spot yet again.

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Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2010/snap…

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Apple Corporate Surveys and Polls Apple iPad

For the third year in a row, Apple has topped the list of Fortune's Most Admired Companies. The list was based on a poll of 4,200...

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Christopher

Clearly this wasn't calculated in the last month or two. Apple has looked REAL evil lately...

March 05 2010 at 8:23 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

MRCUR

"If the iPad is as popular as expected" - Huh? News to me that's it's met the expectations of anyone but the most die hard Apple fans.

March 05 2010 at 6:37 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to MRCUR's comment

Brett

I don't think it met the expectations of the people who had expectations. I think the iPad is going to grab the attention of people who really had no idea it was coming... it's easy to beat expectations when the expectations didn't exist in the first place.

March 05 2010 at 9:14 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

michael

It's too bad the general public (including your CEO's) seem to focus on the 'shiny' aspect of Apple's solutions, and don't realize the reality distortion field that covers aspects of Apple NOT worth admiring about.

March 04 2010 at 10:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to michael's comment

starq

Quickboy.

I always wondered what Ballmer called his lapdog.

March 05 2010 at 12:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Brett

Actually, if you want to take the position that Apple products are nothing special but the general public is affected by the RDF... it gives even more reason for CEOs to admire Apple.

A CEO's job is to do the following:
- Build brand awareness
- Create dedicated customers
- Make products with as high a profit margin as possible
- Put the company in an excellent position for the future

Apple does all of these very well. Oh, and one more thing the CEO is supposed to do - make money for the stockholders. With 136% increase in stock price since last year, again Apple is doing very well.

Personally I believe that Apple's value isn't necessarily in the hardware (as pretty as it is), but in the experience they create. Regardless, if Apple can pull all of the above tasks off by merely making people THINK they've got a better product, then CEOs everywhere have got to be wishing they could get a little of Jobs' RDF for themselves.

March 05 2010 at 9:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply