Apple jumps 18 spots on Fortune 500 list

Last year Apple placed 35th on the Fortune 500 list, this year the Cupertino company leapt 18 spots and are now placed 17th  in Fortune’s annual ratings of the 500 largest corporations in America,

The leap into the top 20 was most likely due to the strong year-over-year revenue growth which saw earnings per share nearly double in 2011 compared to 2010, furthermore the company offered a dividend for the first time since 1995.

According to Fortune, the only other company in the “Computers, Office Equipment” industry to top their revenue was Hewlett-Packard, which finished 10th overall. HP’s revenue totaled over $127 billion compared to Apple’s $108 billion, but when you compare the change since 2010 you see that while HP grew 1 percent Apple grew a staggering 66 percent. Furthermore while Apple’s profit skyrocketed to almost $26 billion representing an 85 percent change from 2010,  HP saw negative growth of 19 percent with a little over $7 billion in profits.

Over the past five years Apple has become the world’s largest company by market cap, a leader in the smartphone market and one of the top PC vendors worldwide.

What do you think, will Apple continue to grow or will it reach a limit?