Apple is the world's third-largest mobile phone maker after Samsung and Nokia. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012.^[ However, the company has received criticism for its contractors' labor practices, and for Apple's own environmental and business practices.
As of November 2012, Apple has 394 retail stores in fourteen countries as well as the online Apple Store and iTunes Store. It is the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization, with an estimated value of US$626 billion as of September 2012. The Apple market cap is larger than that of Google and Microsoft combined. As of September 29, 2012, the company had 72,800 permanent full-time employees and 3,300 temporary full-time employees worldwide. Its worldwide annual revenue in 2010 totaled $65 billion, growing to $156 billion in 2012.





1         1976–80: Founding and incorporation