[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Here's a good article about this.

Profit margins aren't the whole story.

I'll post one part of the article that you didn't as it is the basis of my post:

On the margin. The oil industry urges people to look beyond its profits to its profit margin: about 7.6 percent of revenues late last year. That's not much higher than the 5.8 percent profit margin for all U.S. manufacturing, and if you exclude the financially troubled auto industry from that analysis, the oil industry actually appears less profitable than most manufacturers, which were earning 9.2 cents on every dollar of sales.

In re-doing my research, using Income Statement data for each of these companies found on Yahoo Finance, I see the following data for each of these companies for their last complete fiscal year (typically 2007)

(all figures in billions of dollars)

• Exxon Mobil: $40.61 profit on $404.552 revenue: 10.0% margin
• General Electric: $22.208 profit on $172.738 revenue: 12.9% margin
• Wal-Mart: $12.731 profit on $378.799 revenue: 3.4% margin
• Disney: $4.687 profit on $35.51 revenue: 13.2% margin
• Apple: $4.834 profit on $32.479 revenue: 14.9% margin
• Altria $9.789 profit on $73.801 revenue: 13.3% margin (Altria is the parent corp of Phillip Morris)
• Hewlett-Packard $7.264 profit on $104.286 revenue: 7.0% margin
• IBM: $10.418 profit on $98.786 revenue: 10.5% margin

As you can see, EM's profit IS in line with many other companies. They just happen to be the largest US manufacturing company in terms of revenue, so their margin dollar figures will be also be the largest.

Or to put it in other terms, if each one of the companies listed about had the same revenue figures as Exxon Mobil, their comparative 2007 annual profit dollar figures would be:

1. Apple: $60.211 Billion
2. Altria: $56.660 Billion
3. Disney: $53.397 Billion
4. General Electric: $52.011 Billion
5. IBM: $42.664 Billion
6. Exxon-Mobil: $40.610 Billion
7. Hewlett-Packard: $28.179 Billion
8. Wal-Mart: $13.597 Billion

So, if you think that Exxon Mobil is making too much money, then you really should be going after Apple, Altria, Disney, GE, and IBM FIRST before criticizing Exxon Mobil.

FYI:

• GE was included in this comparison because they were in the story and because they are the largest US manufacturer that isn't an oil company or an auto manufacturer
• Wal-Mart was included in this comparison because they were listed in the linked US News story
• Disney and Apple were included because I referenced them in my previous post
• Altria, HP, and IBM were included because they are the rest of the non oil or auto listings in the top 10 largest manufacturing companies according to Industry Week.