Apple may be the world's most valuable company but it's far from the world's most powerful.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The tech giant became the first company to be valued by the market at $US710 billion ($888.3 billion) in November in 2014 but failed to make the top ten in a list of the world's powerful companies as assessed by Forbes Magazine, released on Tuesday.
Apple scraped in at 12th place, trailing energy companies, automotive giants a few investment banks, and Chinese banks.
Chinese financial powerhouses took out the top four positions, each with more than $US25 billion in annual profit.
ICBC and the China Construction Bank took out the top two places as beneficiaries of the ongoing property boom in China as its economy grows by more than 7 per cent each year. Both of these companies are worth more than $US200 billion.
Apple's market value has increased 120-fold since 2000. Its market cap passed $US300 billion in 2010 and more than doubled four years later.
But while Apple's products may fly off the shelves, banks are more closely connected to a nation's policy and gross domestic profit, such as changing interest rates to affect property prices and managing credit used for developing businesses.
Partly because of this, Australian banks also performed well. The Forbes' list ranks the world's 2000 most powerful companies and included 34 Australian companies.
The Commonwealth Bank was Australia's most powerful company, taking out 47th place, followed by mining giant BHP Billiton (50th), Westpac Banking Group (60th), ANZ (75th) and the National Australia Bank (83rd).
Rounding out the top ten for Australian companies was Wesfarmers (243rd), Telstra (244th), Woolworths (339th), Macquarie Group (389th) and AMP (448th).