Do you know which company in your state makes the most money? In some states, it might be obvious. Amazon dominates Washington state these days, and General Motors has long been a Michigan powerhouse.
HowMuch.net, which gathers and illustrates financial data, used company filings and estimates of private company figures from 2017 to list the largest company in every state, by total revenue. Some of the results might surprise you. You’ll find plenty of insurance companies, of course, but also chicken farms and coal-mining operations. There are also a few consumer-product companies that you may interact with daily — if you wear Nikes or use Apple computers or smartphones.
Here’s a look at each state, in alphabetical order, with its top-earning company.
Alabama
Company: Alabama Power
Revenue: $5.6 billion
As its name indicates, the biggest company in this state, Birmingham-based Alabama Power, is an electrical utility. Founded in 1906, it provides electric power to more than a million customers in the South.
Alaska
Company: Arctic Slope Regional Corp.
Revenue: $2.5 billion
Arctic Slope Regional Corp., an Alaskan Native corporation based in Barrow, operates businesses in energy support, petroleum refining, construction and other areas.
Arizona
Company: Avnet
Revenue: $26.2 billion
Founded in 1921, Phoenix-based Avnet is one of the world’s largest electronic components and services companies.
Arkansas
Company: Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Revenue: $485.9 billion
Walmart doesn’t just sell “wall stuff,” as television personality Paris Hilton once wondered on her reality show “The Simple Life.” The world’s largest company by revenue, it operates more than 11,000 stores in 28 countries, including grocery stores and discount department stores, plus combinations of the two.
California
Company: Apple Inc.
Revenue: $215.6 billion
Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer Inc.) comes in at No. 6 on the list of biggest U.S. companies. Sure, the technology company still makes its famous computers, but it also designs, develops and sells other consumer electronics, computer software and online services, including smartphones, smart speakers and more.
Colorado
Company: Arrow Electronics Inc.
Revenue: $23.8 billion
Arrow Electronics, based in Centennial, is a global provider of products, services and solutions relating to electronic components and computer products.
Colorado is a location that’s attractive to businesses, with career website Zippia naming it one of “The 10 Best States for Launching Your Startup.”
Connecticut
Company: Aetna Inc.
Revenue: $63.2 billion
Based in Hartford, Aetna is a managed health care company, offering insurance plans as well as services for health care management, workers’ compensation administration and health information technology. In October 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice approved a merger between Aetna and retail pharmacy giant CVS Health. (You’ll see CVS Health show up again in Rhode Island.)
Delaware
Company: DuPont
Revenue: $24.6 billion
With its global headquarters in Wilmington, DuPont is one of the world’s largest chemical companies. The company’s scientists have developed numerous familiar household items, from nylon to Teflon to Freon.
Florida
Company: Publix Super Markets Inc.
Revenue: $34 billion
The Publix grocery-store chain is headquartered in Lakeland. If you ever get down there, check out the company’s imaginative birthday-cake-shaped water tower with light-up candles, which earned it a mention in “The Best Roadside Attraction to Check Out in Every State.”
Georgia
Company: The Home Depot Inc.
Revenue: $94.6 billion
If you own a home, you’ve likely been to the Cobb County-headquartered Home Depot, a giant chain of stores selling home improvement supplies, plus other enticements, from Halloween decor to houseplants.
Hawaii
Company: Hawaiian Holdings Inc.
Revenue: $2.5 billion
Hawaiian Holdings Inc.’s subsidiaries include Hawaiian Airlines, the tenth-largest U.S. commercial airline and Hawaii’s largest carrier, with its main hub on Oahu and another hub on Maui. Flying since 1929, the airline has never had a fatal accident.
Hawaii is lovely to visit, to be sure. But before you plan to retire there, learn why Hawaii is one of “The 15 Worst States for Retirees.”
Idaho
Company: Albertsons Companies LLC
Revenue: $59.7 billion
Boise-based Albertsons operates more than 2,200 grocery stores, making it the second-largest grocery chain in North America, behind Kroger. (The name used to be Albertson’s, but the company dropped the apostrophe in 2002.)
Illinois
Company: Walgreens Boots Alliance
Revenue: $117.4 billion
Walgreens Boots Alliance, headquartered in Deerfield, owns the American pharmacy and store chain Walgreens, the U.K.-based drug store chain Boots and other related businesses.
Indiana
Company: Anthem
Revenue: $85 billion
Indianapolis-based health-insurance company Anthem is the largest for-profit managed health care company in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
Iowa
Company: Aegon
Revenue: $37.9 billion
Aegon is the parent of an insurance company whose name might be more familiar: Transamerica. The two companies have a large presence in Cedar Rapids.
Kansas
Company: Koch Industries Inc.
Revenue: $100 billion
Wichita-based Koch Industries is America’s second-largest private company, Forbes reports, producing Dixie cups, Stainmaster carpet, pipelines, chemicals, food, home construction products and much more.
Kentucky
Company: Humana
Revenue: $54.4 billion
Humana, based in Louisville, is a health insurance company. Its roots in a nursing home company date to 1961.
Louisiana
Company: Rain Carbon Inc.
Revenue: $23.6 billion
Rain Carbon Inc. is an international industrial carbon company based in Covington, which has plants in Louisiana, Mississippi and overseas.
Maine
Company: Idexx Laboratories
Revenue: $1.8 billion
Based in Westbrook, Idexx Laboratories develops, makes and distributes products and services relating to the veterinary, livestock and poultry, water testing and dairy markets.
Maryland
Company: Lockheed Martin Corp.
Revenue: $47.2 billion
Based in Bethesda, Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest defense contractor, operating in the aerospace, defense, security and technologies industries.
Massachusetts
Company: General Electric Co.
Revenue: $123.7 billion
Boston-based General Electric is one of the biggest U.S. companies by revenue. American inventor Thomas Edison helped found GE in the 1880s. Now, it is a multinational corporation involved in aviation, oil and gas, health care, digital technology, lighting, transportation and more.
Michigan
Company: General Motors Corp.
Revenue: $166.4 billion
Despite the ups and downs of the American automobile industry, Detroit-based General Motors remains the highest-earning company in Michigan. Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC are among its divisions.
Minnesota
Company: UnitedHealth Group Inc.
Revenue: $184.8 billion
Based in the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka, UnitedHealth Group is the largest managed health care company in the world. After recent acquisitions and a reorganization, it has adopted the unified brand UnitedHealthcare.
Mississippi
Company: Sanderson Farms Inc.
Revenue: $2.8 billion
Headquartered in Laurel, Sanderson Farms is one of the largest poultry producers in the United States.
Missouri
Company: Express Scripts
Revenue: $100.3 billion
Express Scripts is a pharmacy-benefit management organization headquartered in St. Louis. In March 2018, health-insurance giant Cigna agreed to buy the company, a $52 billion deal that’s been approved by the company’s shareholders and by the U.S. Justice Department.
Montana
Company: National Flood Services
Revenue: $700 million
Based in Kalispell, National Flood Services manages and services flood insurance policies.
Nebraska
Company: Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Revenue: $223.6 billion
Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway is the third-largest U.S. company by revenue. Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett turns up regularly on lists of the richest people in the world. The company owns Geico, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Pampered Chef, NetJets and more, and it has minority holdings in such companies as Coca-Cola, Bank of America and Apple.
Nevada
Company: Las Vegas Sands Corp.
Revenue: $12.2 billion
Las Vegas Sands Corp. owns The Venetian Las Vegas (pictured above) and other properties in the U.S. and abroad. It is a casino, hotel and resort company based in Paradise, an unincorporated town near Las Vegas.
New Hampshire
Company: C&S Wholesale Grocers
Revenue: $29.5 billion
Based in Keene, C&S Wholesale Grocers is the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the U.S.
New Jersey
Company: Johnson & Johnson
Revenue: $71.9 billion
New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson may be best known for its consumer goods, such as baby powder, yet it also manufactures medical devices and pharmaceutical products. The multinational company was founded in 1886.
New Mexico
Company: PNM Resources
Revenue: $1.4 billion
PNM Resources is an energy holding company based in Albuquerque. It supplies electricity to more than 773,000 homes and businesses in New Mexico and Texas.
New York
Company: Verizon Communications Inc.
Revenue: $126 billion
The telecommunications conglomerate Verizon Communications, one of the nation’s biggest companies by revenue, is headquartered in Manhattan.
North Carolina
Company: Bank of America Corp.
Revenue: $83.7 billion
Charlotte-based Bank of America is a multinational investment bank and financial services company. It is one of the biggest American financial institutions, following only JP Morgan Chase.
North Dakota
Company: MDU Resources
Revenue: $4.1 billion
MDU Resources, based in Bismarck, is in the business of generating and delivering energy, servicing businesses and processing and selling construction materials.
Ohio
Company: Cardinal Health Inc.
Revenue: $121.5 billion
Health-care services company Cardinal Health, based in the Columbus suburb of Dublin, specializes in the distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical products.
Oklahoma
Company: Enterprise Crude Oil LLC
Revenue: $20.9 billion
Enterprise Crude Oil LLC provides energy services to producers and consumers of natural gas, natural gas liquids, crude oil, refined products and petrochemicals. Its headquarters is in Oklahoma City.
Oregon
Company: Nike Inc.
Revenue: $32.4 billion
If the shoe fits, you might have purchased it at Nike. The Beaverton-based company is the world’s largest maker of athletic shoes, gear, apparel and accessories.
Pennsylvania
Company: AmerisourceBergen Corp.
Revenue: $146.8 billion
AmerisourceBergen is a drug wholesale company based in Chesterbrook that was formed by the merger of Bergen Brunswig and AmeriSource in 2001.
Rhode Island
Company: CVS Health Corp.
Revenue: $177.5 billion
Headquartered in Woonsocket, CVS Health is a retail pharmacy and health care company operating CVS Pharmacies, Minute Clinic retail medical clinics, Longs Drugs stores and more. The letters in its name originally stood for Consumer Value Stores. CVS puts tiny Rhode Island on the map with one of the largest companies by revenue per state.
South Carolina
Company: BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina
Revenue: $7.2 billion
Health insurance company BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. It ranks as the state’s largest company by serving 21.5 million people through private business and government contracts out of its headquarters in Columbia.
South Dakota
Company: POET Inc.
Revenue: $4.4 billion
Sioux Falls-based POET, a leader in the sustainable fuels industry, is a biofuel company specializing in making bioethanol. Formerly Broin Companies, the 30-year-old company was renamed POET in 2007.
Tennessee
Company: FedEx Corp.
Revenue: $50.4 billion
Memphis-based FedEx is a multinational delivery services company known for its overnight shipping service. In the 2000 feature film “Cast Away,” Tom Hanks plays a FedEx employee stranded by a plane crash on a deserted island who survives with the contents of FedEx packages that washed ashore with him.
Texas
Company: Exxon Mobil Corp.
Revenue: $226.1 billion
Multinational oil and gas corporation Exxon Mobil, headquartered in Irving, is No. 2 among the top-10 U.S. companies ranked by revenue, behind only Walmart, and the world’s 10th-largest company by revenue.
Utah
Company: Asahi Refining
Revenue: $21 billion
Asahi Refining is a leading provider of precious metal assaying, refining and bullion products. The company, headquartered in Salt Lake City and Brampton, Canada, has refineries on three continents.
Vermont
Company: Keurig Dr Pepper
Revenue: $4.5 billion when list was issued ($11 billion estimated after recent merger)
You may know the Keurig name from the popular home appliances that use small pods to make single servings of coffee, tea and other beverages. Formerly known as Keurig Green Mountain, the Waterbury-based company grew in value recently after it and the Dr Pepper Snapple Group merged to create the third-largest beverage company in North America, with annual revenues of approximately $11 billion.
Virginia
Company: Mars
Revenue: $35 billion
Best known for candies such as 3 Musketeers, M&M’s and Snickers, McLean-based Mars also makes pet foods including Pedigree and Royal Canin and other foods, including Uncle Ben’s rice.
Washington
Company: Amazon
Revenue: $136 billion
Online commerce and cloud-computing company Amazon is based in Seattle, but the company has been looking for a second location for more than a year and has narrowed the search to 20 finalist cities. Amazon is the largest internet retailer in the world by revenue, and the company also includes a publishing arm and film and TV studio, and produces consumer electronics such as the Kindle e-reader and Amazon Echo smart speaker. Amazon also is a huge employer. Find out if Washington state is among “The Best and Worst States for American Workers.”
West Virginia
Company: MonPower
Revenue: $1.6 billion
MonPower, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., is an electric utility company based in Fairmont. It serves 385,000 West Virginia customers.
Wisconsin
Company: Johnson Controls
Revenue: $36.9 billion
Johnson Controls, with offices in downtown Milwaukee, produces automotive parts, electronics and indoor temperature regulation systems. The company is named for Warren S. Johnson, who received a patent for the first electric room thermostat in 1883.
Wyoming
Company: Cloud Peak Energy
Revenue: $800 million
Cloud Peak Energy, headquartered in Gillette, operates three open-pit coal mines in Wyoming and Montana as one of the largest coal producers in the U.S.
Which of these top-earning companies are your favorites? Share your opinion in comments below or on our Facebook page.
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