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The 2010 Fortune 500 list just came out and I'm completely blown away by Wal-Mart's size. We all know that the retail giant is the largest company in the world. But it's by how much that gets me.

Wal-Mart clocked in at $408 billion in revenues in 2009. The second-ranked Exxon Mobil, brought in $285 billion. If the difference between the two -- $124 billion -- were a company, it would be ranked 7th on the list. Let me say that again: Wal-Mart is bigger than the next largest company by the equivalent of an AT&T.

Let's exclude the oil companies from the list for the moment, since their revenues depend heavily on the price of oil and swing wildly -- Exxon's revenues were over $400 billion last year. Looking at companies that make anything but oil, Wal-Mart is basically three to four times the size of the largest ones, including Ford, HP, Citigroup, GM, IBM, and so on.

To read the full, original article click on this link: Andrew Winston: Wal-Mart: The Largest (Sustainable) Company Ever

Author:  Andrew Winston