Fortune magazine’s new Sector Leaders lists highlight companies that dominate their industries

The expansion of the ranking’s scope means it now includes companies in 21 sectors, from aerospace and defense to wholesalers. To dig deeper and examine the biggest players in these sectors, Fortune today unveiled our first collection of Fortune Sector Leaders rankings.

We’ve highlighted or re-ranked the top companies by annual revenue in 19 of these sectors to better show who is leading the way in each space in the business world.

The number of companies, or the cutoff point, for each Sector Leaders list varies depending on the total number of companies in the sector. For example, there are more companies in the financial sector than in the chemicals sector in the Fortune 1000, so the Financials Sector Leaders list includes 50 companies, while the Chemicals Sector Leaders list includes 15 companies in total. We didn’t create separate Sector Leaders lists for grocery and drug stores or telecommunications—those two sectors have only nine companies, which we don’t think is enough to justify spin-off rankings. (Not everyone gets a trophy!)

The Fortune 500 is our iconic brand that recognizes America’s largest companies by revenue, but each spring we publish the Fortune 1000. You can think of the Fortune 500 as the tip of the iceberg, with the rest of the 1000 looming beneath it. Many of the companies that rank 501–1000 in a given year are waiting in the wings to break into the main list and outpace their competitors. All of this means: Many of the industry leaders are companies that didn’t make the Fortune 500 this year but still deserve to be on the Fortune list.

Numbers worth knowing

19…Fortune magazine’s published lists of sector leaders featuring Fortune 1000 companies cover 19 sectors.

21…The total number of sectors across all Fortune 1000 companies.

70…The total number of industries across all Fortune 1000 companies. For our purposes, sectors are broad categories, each of which encompasses a number of industries.

163… The number of companies on the 2024 Fortune 1000 list that are in the financial sector — the sector with the largest number of companies.

$3.7 trillion… Combined annual revenue of Fortune Sector Leaders: Finance (highest combined revenue of all sectors).

15… The number of Fortune Sector Leaders lists featuring companies ranked 501 to 1,000 on the 2024 Fortune 1000.

No. 135… Visa’s position in the 2024 Fortune 500 rankings. Visa is the lowest-ranked Fortune 500 company, which is number 1 on the sector list (Fortune Sector Leaders: Business Services).

No. 753… Crocs’ position in the 2024 Fortune 1000 rankings. Crocs is the lowest-ranked Fortune 1000 company to appear on the sector list (Fortune Sector Leaders: Apparel).

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The Fortune Sector Leaders lists make it easy to see at a glance how companies rank in terms of annual revenue among their peers. They also offer a sense of the size and scope of each sector on the Fortune 1000. The number of Sector Leaders recognized in each category—10, 15, 20, 25, or 50—gives a sense of scale as to the raw number of companies in that sector. And the total revenues and profits, listed on the landing page for each Sector Leaders ranking, provide another way to assess the importance of each sector in the U.S. economy.

Deeper conclusions

Finance brings revenue, but technology brings profit

The largest list of sector leaders in terms of total revenues is finance, $3.7 trillionand then on the list of leaders in the healthcare sector, $3.1 trillion in revenue. Both of these numbers reflect the total revenue for 50 largest companies in their sectors. Retailing Sector Leaders ranks third, with $2.7 trillion in total revenue in 50 companies.

Profits, as is always the case with the Fortune 500/Fortune 1000, tell a different story. Technology is the most profitable sector, and the leaders of the technology sector have taken $453 billion in profits throughout 50 companies. The revenues of this group amounted to $2.4 trillion (fourth largest sector leader in terms of total revenues).

The list of leaders in the motor vehicles and parts sector includes only 10 companies, but their total revenues amount to $612 billion. AND $612 billion is the exact total revenue of another sector, transportation. The leaders of the transportation sector include 25 companies, however. What about profits? Transport generated $39 billionwhile the leaders in the motor vehicle and parts sector generated $32 billion. Conclusion: At least last year, motor vehicle and parts companies were more efficient generators of sales and profits than transportation companies.

Fortune 1000 companies offer more slicing and dicing options

On Browse list page for the Fortune 500, you can get even more specific. Not only can you filter the Fortune 1000 by sector to see exactly where each of the Sector Leaders landed on the overall list, but you can also filter further, by any of the Fortune 1000 70 industries.

For example, the financial sector is led by Berkshire Hathaway, which is ranked 5th overall this year. But the industry it belongs to is “Insurance: Property & Casualty (Stocks).” That’s just one of the four The list is divided into the following insurance industries.

You can also filter by sector for previous years of the Fortune 1000 to get a sense of how yesterday’s Sector Leaders rankings looked. While Fannie Mae was the third-largest financial services company by revenue in 2019, for example, fifth largest in 2024, Bank of America and Citigroup are ranked 3rd and 4th respectively on the list of financial sector leaders for 2024. Banks, I think, mentioned in this newsletter on June 4, when we published the Fortune 1000 list, have been rising rapidly recently for many reasons, one of the most important being the continued high level of interest rates.

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I’ll be back in your inboxes on Monday, August 5 with an edition of Fortune Analytics on 2024 Fortune Global 500 list to be published this morning. See you there.

Lydia Belanger
Production Director, Fortune
[email protected]