Innovation by Industry

Companies rated within their own fields, from financial services to travel and tourism

Is Apple (AAPL) a retailer or a media company? A technology or consumer products company? Ask the respondents to this year's survey of senior executives, and they'll say all four. Its sleek stores bring the customer experience to new heights, while its iTunes service is revolutionizing the worlds of music, TV, and movies. The high-tech inside all those millions of iPods and iPhones is superb—but the intimacy customers feel with Apple's high-design products goes far beyond the traditional loyalty consumers have to high tech. With innovation on so many fronts, is it any wonder Apple again tops our list of the World's Most Innovative Companies—and was voted top player in four separate industries?

Take a look at our rankings of the World's Most Innovative Companies by industry for more repeat appearances—Google (GOOG), 3M (MMM), and Nintendo (NTDOY) are three companies that show up multiple times—and for some industry stars that didn't make it onto our top 50 list.

*DATA: The industry lists are determined by votes from more than 2,950 senior executives in the 2008 BusinessWeek - Boston Consulting Group survey only. Ties were broken by comparing three-year total shareholder returns from Dec. 31, 2004 to Dec. 31, 2007. In the case of a tie between public and private companies, public companies were given the advantage.