Fortune has announced its annual list of the world’s most admired companies, and for the 10th year in a row Apple has taken first place.

Arch-rival Samsung dropped out of the top 50 this year, Fortune explaining that its exploding batteries caused too much damage to both its sales and reputation.

The method used to calculate rankings is nothing if not thorough …

Fortune starts with the thousand largest U.S. companies, plus the biggest non-U.S. companies from its Global 500 database, then draws up a shortlist of 680 companies based on the highest revenues within their respective industries. Finally, it asks 3,800 execs, directors and analysts to select the ten companies they admire the most, and to rank them on nine criteria.

The criteria used are innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment value, quality of products and global competitiveness.

Apple of course regularly wins awards, including world’s most valuable brand, with CEO Tim Cook named on the Time 100 most influential people list. The company’s stock is also currently trading at an all-time high.

Photo: Damien, Ilovepapers

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