ExxonMobil passes Wal-Mart atop Fortune 500

NEW YORK -- ExxonMobil Corp. unseated Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the 2009 Fortune 500 list, shrugging off the oil price bubble and weathering what the magazine called the worst year ever for the country's largest publicly traded companies.

Fortune's closely watched list, released Sunday, ranked companies by their revenue in 2008. Irving, Texas-based Exxon took in $442.85 billion in revenue last year, up almost 19% from 2007. The company also raked in the biggest annual profit, earning $45.2 billion.

Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart had held the top spot for six of the last seven years but fell to No. 2 this year. Still, the retail giant's 2008 revenue climbed 7% to $405.6 billion, as the battered economy sent more consumers searching for bargains. The world's largest retailer took in $13.4 billion in annual profit, an increase of about 5%.

Although it may have been a good year for Exxon and Wal-Mart, 2008 was far from rosy for most of remaining companies on the list. Overall earnings plunged 85% to $98.9 billion from $645 billion in 2007, the biggest one-year decline in the 55-year history of the Fortune 500 list.

"America is getting used to the sound of bubbles bursting," Fortune said.

Energy companies continued to dominate many of the top positions, as last summer's skyrocketing oil and gas prices more than compensated for their plunge later that fall. Chevron Corp. held on to third place with $263.16 billion in revenue, up 25%. ConocoPhillips climbed one place to fourth, with $230.76 billion in revenue.

General Electric Co., the diverse conglomerate whose troubled financial arm has been weighing on recent results, rose one notch to fifth. Battered automaker General Motors Corp. fell two spots to sixth, as revenue fell 18% and losses totaled $30.86 billion amid the imploding car market. Crosstown rival Ford Motor Co. followed, with $146.28 billion in revenue.

Telecom giant AT&T Inc. moved up two notches to take eighth place, with Hewlett-Packard Co. and Valero Energy Corp. rounding out the top 10.