Forbes has published their list of most innovative companies ranking Apple in 5th place.
The top five companies are Salesforce.com, Amazon.com, Intuitive Surgical, Tencent Holdings, and Apple. Google placed 7th, Adobe placed 54th, and Microsoft placed 86th.
How is it calculated? We first project a company's income (cash flows, in this case) from existing businesses, plus anticipated growth from those businesses, and look at the net present value (NPV) of those cash flows. We compare the NPV of cash flows from existing businesses with a current market capitalization: Companies with a current market cap above the NPV of cash flows have an innovation premium built into their stock. Big caveat: This method does not correlate with subsequent investor returns.
Innovative? I think Forbes does not know this means new, novel and original and advanced considering their criteria is based more on marketing and sales figures than creativity. Marketing efficiently. Outperforming. Maybe those would be a better name for this "innovative" index rather than the Forbes "innovative" usage.
Forbes - Innovative fail.
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