Apple Remains World’s Most Admired Company While Samsung Falters

Apple Remains World's Most Admired Company While Samsung Falters Credit: Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock
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Out of a whopping 1,500+ candidates headquartered in the U.S., and all around the globe, Apple for the second year in a row remained at the helm of Fortune’s annual list of the ‘World’s Most Admired’ companies — while Apple’s arch rival in the tech space, Samsung, who had previously clocked in at number 35, didn’t even make the top 50 this time around.

Fortune collaborated with the Korn Ferry Hay Group — a global leader in business consulting and analytics — in order to conduct its annual survey of corporate reputations. Utilizing data collected from 1,000 of the largest and most profitable U.S.-based companies, as well as 500 “non-U.S.” entities based in various international markets, Fortune was ultimately able to narrow the pool of candidates down to 680 of the top-grossing corporations — based on criteria, including “investment value, quality of management and products, to social responsibility and ability to attract talent.”

Samsung, who had previously clocked in at number 35, didn’t even make the top 50.

According to CNET, tech companies, in particular, are traditionally among the best performers on these annual lists, due to the fact that they often boast the highest brand-recognition and are viewed as more progressive in the eyes of the general public — innovating and advancing their technology to more aptly meet the demands of an increasingly digital world.

In order to narrow down the list of 680 even further — ultimately selecting the ‘Top 50 All-Stars’, Fortune instructed Korn Ferry Hay Group to survey nearly 4,000 of the world’s most influential executives, directors, and leading securities analysts, who were asked to respond to the survey by selecting the 10 corporations they admired most out any company in any industry — ultimately pooling the results in order to formulate each year’s list. Korn Ferry Hay Group has been Fortune’s exclusive research partner in conducting these surveys for the last 20 years.

Apple came in just slightly ahead of the No. 2 runner-up, Amazon — followed by Starbucks, Berkshire Hathaway, Disney, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, General Electric, Southwest Airlines, and finally, in a dead tie for 9th (and 10th) place, Facebook and Microsoft, respectively.

Notably to those in the tech-space, absent from the list this year is Samsung Electronics Co., who had previously ranked No. 35 in Fortune’s top 50. While the Galaxy S-maker is already on track to release a number of exciting and powerful mobile devices this year, including the Samsung Galaxy S8, it appears that last summer’s Galaxy Note 7-related exploding battery disaster has set the South Korean tech-giant’s reputation aflame (no pun intended). Of course, while Samsung provided plenty of explanation about the fiasco, which resulted in the worldwide recall of millions of Note 7 handsets, Fortune clearly specifies that one of the most important criteria in curating its annual list is “reputation” — which is something Samsung has clearly got a lot of work to do on building from the ground up.

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