Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B)

Berkshire's revenue line blends things most conglomerates keep separate: insurance premiums from GEICO and its reinsurance operations, freight revenue from the BNSF railroad, regulated utility sales from Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and product sales from wholly owned manufacturers and retailers like See's Candies, Duracell, and Precision Castparts. The insurance 'float'—premiums collected before claims are paid—is the engine Buffett has used for decades to fund acquisitions and stock purchases, making Berkshire's revenue mix unusually diversified for a single ticker.

Berkshire also holds a massive public-equity portfolio (Apple, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, American Express) whose quarterly mark-to-market swings under GAAP accounting rules can move reported net income by tens of billions without touching the operating revenue figure shown here—Buffett has repeatedly told shareholders to ignore that noise and watch operating earnings instead. Berkshire pays no dividend, reinvesting float and operating cash into new acquisitions or its own buyback program instead.

This page tracks Berkshire the company's top-line sales; that is a different concept from our separate Warren Buffett page, which tracks his personal net-worth change—Buffett's fortune is mostly unrealized Berkshire stock, not company revenue, and the two counters can move in opposite directions in a given year. Vice Chairman Greg Abel, not Buffett, now runs day-to-day operations and is set to become CEO, a succession detail investors watch closely.

Berkshire's Class A shares have never split, trading at hundreds of thousands of dollars each, which is why the more liquid Class B shares (BRK.B) exist for smaller investors—neither share class changes the underlying revenue figure divided into seconds here. For the full breakdown between insurance, rail, energy, and manufacturing/retail segments, Berkshire's dense annual report and Buffett's shareholder letter remain far more informative than any single top-line number.