SV150 TOP 10 LISTS

SALES

WORKFORCE

SALES PER EMPLOYEE

Sales growth for the SV150 slipped to 6.8% in 2015 from 10.5%
the year before. The number of companies reporting sales gains
fell to 106, down from 124 in 2014. Two of the top 10 sales gains
were IPOs: Pure Storage, a supplier of cloud computing
technology, and Fitbit, the maker of wearable wireless fitness
monitoring devices.

The SV150 boosted total employment in 2015 to a record 1.43

million jobs, up 4.5% from the year before. It was the biggest
increase in three years, with 7 out of every 10 SV150 companies
adding workers. For the third year in a row, the clean tech sector
had the biggest percentage increase in employees, boosting its
workforce by 13,565, or 50%.

Sales per employee among the SV150 grew for a sixth year,
rising 2.2% to a record $582,634. Productivity rose at 77
companies, 50 of which managed increases in both sales and
workforce. Five Prime Therapeutics had the biggest increase
thanks to a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb that came with an
upfront payment of $350 million in the 2015 fourth quarter.

Biggest gains

Biggest increases

Biggest gains

SV150
Rank rank

Company

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Five Prime Therapeutics

Silver Spring Networks
Pure Storage*
Fitbit*
Cypress Semiconductor
LendingClub
Zendesk
TubeMogul
Twitter
Inphi

103
92
96
46
49
66
142
150
40
133

2015 sales
(millions)

1-year
change

$380
490
440
1,858
1,608
980
209
181
2,218
247

1,875%
156%
152%
149%
122%
99%
64%
58%
58%
58%

2015 sales
(millions)

1-year
change

SV150
Rank rank

Company

$1,577
223
4,040
3,991
1,300
5,424
1,173
5,565
377
343

-48%
-38%
-36%
-28%
-25%
-18%
-17%
-16%
-13%
-12%

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Agilent Technologies
eBay
Viavi Solutions
Aviat Networks
Fairchild Semiconductor
Yahoo
Zynga
Extreme Networks
WageWorks
Atmel

Biggest drops

Company

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Fitbit*
Sunrun*
Cypress Semiconductor
SolarCity
LendingClub
Pure Storage*
Netflix
GoPro
Zendesk
Pandora Media

46
120
49
100
66
96
14
48
142
60

2015
employees

1-year
change

Rank

1,101
3,380
6,279
15,273
1,382
1,300
3,500
1,539
1,268
2,219

135%
99%
87%
69%
64%
63%
60%
59%
57%
57%

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

2015
employees

1-year
change

Rank

11,800
11,600
3,200
740
6,379
10,400
1,669
1,351
1,480
4,700

-45%
-38%
-37%
-23%
-23%
-17%
-15%
-14%
-12%
-10%

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Biggest cuts

SV150
Rank rank

Company

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

SunPower
LeapFrog Enterprises
Agilent Technologies
Advanced Micro Devices
Viavi Solutions
Symantec
Atmel
SanDisk
Harmonic
Depomed

50
138
29
30
54
21
59
20
104
112

SV150
Rank rank

29
13
54
118
52
24
77
86
114
59

Net profit for the SV150 rose 4.1 percent in 2015 to a record
$133 billion. That followed a 23% jump in profits the year before
that was the fastest growth since 2010. The number of
companies that were profitable slipped to 86, down from 87 the
year before. Gilead Sciences had a $6 billion jump in profits that
was 50% higher than the year before on a 31% increase in sales.

Profit margin is net profit divided by sales. The SV150's profit

margin dropped to 16% from a record 16.4% the year before, but
was still the third best margin on record. Net profit can be
dramatically affected by accounting events. Rambus, for
example, recorded a $151.2 million tax benefit from the release
of the valuation allowance on deferred taxes.

SV150
Rank rank

Company

SV150
Rank rank

Company

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Apple
Gilead Sciences
Cisco Systems
eBay
Alphabet
PayPal Holdings
Facebook
Adobe Systems
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Rambus

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Rambus
Five Prime Therapeutics
Gilead Sciences
Tessera Technologies
Linear Technology
Medivation
Intuitive Surgical
Ubiquiti Networks
Xilinx
Oracle

1
8
6
13
2
12
9
22
4
123

$53,731
18,108
10,333
1,725
15,897
1,228
3,670
799
2,181
211

1-year
change

$9,269
6,007
1,680
1,679
1,453
809
745
508
428
185

BIGGEST CHANGES
IN MARKET VALUES

123
103
8
128
51
68
35
82
41
7

2015
profit
margin

2015 net profit

(millions)

$211
250
18,108
117
502
245
589
149
541
8,844

71%
66%
56%
43%
35%
26%
25%
25%
25%
24%

Biggest gains

Most valued

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

110
113
133
103
14
34
92
23
76
139

Company

Oclaro
NeoPhotonics
Inphi
Five Prime Therapeutics
Netflix
Equinix
Silver Spring Networks
Nvidia
Coherent
Gigamon

Market value
(millions)

1-year
change

Rank

$600
577
1,330
1,132
43,763
22,827
751
19,312
2,585
1,069

178%
161%
97%
94%
74%
74%
70%
68%
61%
52%

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Biggest declines
Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

SV150
rank

48
95
40
104
90
116
119
83
66
146

Company

GoPro
Rocket Fuel
Twitter
Harmonic
Quantum
Nimble Storage
Barracuda Networks
Yelp
LendingClub
Natera*

SV150
rank

9
61
62
102
65
79
35
22
142
98

Company

Facebook
Workday
Palo Alto Networks
Guidewire Software
ServiceNow
Splunk
Intuitive Surgical
Adobe Systems
Zendesk
Cavium

1-year
change

Rank

$1,637
137
11,547
253
161
659
818
1,512
3,166
484

-71%
-65%
-64%
-62%
-61%
-60%
-60%
-57%
-57%
-56%

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

* Company held its initial public offering in 2015

** Figure not available. Company spun off from Hewlett-Packard in 2015.

SV150
rank

118
10
17
95
138
90
94
5
84
126

Company

Aviat Networks
Synnex
Sanmina-SCI
Rocket Fuel
Leapfrog Enterprises
Quantum
Ultra Clean
HP
Silicon Graphics
QuinStreet

Five Prime Therapeutics $2,466,240

Silver Spring Networks
750,857
eBay
740,690
Pure Storage*
338,718
Inphi
522,492
Twitter
569,018
WageWorks
225,889
Penumbra*
169,177
Rocket Fuel
483,895
Square*
874,478

1477%
126%
58%
55%
49%
48%
41%
35%
33%
32%

50
112
138
82
10
48
128
14
120
30

Company

Sales per
employee in 2015

SunPower
Depomed
LeapFrog Enterprises
Ubiquiti Networks
Synnex
GoPro
Tessera Technologies
Netflix
Sunrun*
Advanced Micro Devices

1-year
change

$421,155
1,204,821
625,399
1,947,314
237,543
1,437,325
1,373,433
2,514,690
116,798
567,629

-55%
-42%
-32%
-28%
-28%
-27%
-25%
-23%
-23%
-23%

BEST NET LOSSES

Four out of every 10 companies in the SV150 recorded net

losses in 2015. The biggest came from Yahoo, which reported a
net loss of $4.36 billion due primarily from wrtiting down $4.46
billion in the value of its goodwill, but Yahoo also used up $2.4
billion of its cash to run operations in 2015 and is currently
contemplating selling some or all of itself.
Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

SV150
rank

24
28
30
81
40
49
61
79
96
56

Company

2015 net profit

(millions)

Yahoo
Tesla Motors
Advanced Micro Devices
FireEye
Twitter
Cypress Semiconductor
Workday
Splunk
Pure Storage*
Square*

($4,359)
(889)
(660)
(539)
(521)
(384)
(290)
(279)
(214)
(212)

1-year
change

-$11,881
-595
-257
-95
57
-402
-42
-62
-31
-58

The SV150 generated a combined $216 billion in cash from their

operations in 2015, up from the year before by 5.5%. That was
about a third of the 16.2% gain produced in 2014. The cash
helped the SV150 fund $122.5 billion in stock buybacks and
dividends, down 9 percent from the year before, and $10 billion in
acquisitions, down 65% from 2014. The SV150 also increased
total debt by more than 30% for the second year in a row to
$285 billion.

Biggest pile of cash, investments

Market value
(millions)

Value-tosales ratio

$324,761
14,984
14,417
3,926
9,875
6,477
22,646
46,920
1,894
3,504

18.1
12.9
12.5
9.9
9.8
9.7
9.5
9.3
9.1
8.5

Least valued
Market value
(millions)

1-year
change

BALANCE
SHEETS

One way to see how investors value a company is by looking at

what they are willing to pay for it relative to its sales. Investors
valued the SV150 as a group at 3.5 times sales as of March 31,
down from 3.7 times sales the year before. Facebook once again
was the most highly valued company at 18 times its current annual
sales. Compare that with Apple, the SV150's No. 1 company, which
trades at a relative bargain of 2.6 times annual sales.

SV150
rank

SV150
rank

MARKET VALUETO-SALES RATIO

The combined market value of companies in the SV150 rose a

scant 0.8% over the last year to $2.94 trillion, after rising more
than 20% the year before. The largest company among the top
10 gainers was Netflix, which saw its value rise 75% over the last
year to $43.8 billion. Among those that lost the most value was
the social networking and microblogging company Twitter, which
lost nearly two-thirds of its value despite a 58% gain in sales.

Rank

103
92
13
96
133
40
114
148
95
56

Sales per
employee in 2015

Company

Biggest drops

BIGGEST PROFIT GAINS BEST PROFIT MARGINS

2015 net profit
(millions)

SV150
rank

Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

SV150
rank

1
2
6
7
24
3
8
9
13
4

Cash, investments
(millions)

1-year
change

Apple
$205,666
Alphabet
78,249
Cisco Systems
64,274
Oracle
54,368
Yahoo
38,005
Intel
31,574
Gilead Sciences
26,208
Facebook
18,434
eBay
9,522
Hewlett Packard Enterprise 8,505

16%
16%
14%
24%
-24%
36%
124%
65%
-39%
NA**

Company

Biggest debt levels

Market value
(millions)

Value-tosales ratio

$45
3,674
1,805
137
71
161
174
21,272
254
155

0.1
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.4
0.4
0.5
0.5

Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

SV150
rank

1
7
6
3
8
4
13
5
34
2

Total debt
(millions)

1-year
change

Apple
$64,462
Oracle
41,958
Cisco Systems
25,354
Intel
22,670
Gilead Sciences
22,180
Hewlett Packard Enterprise 15,229
eBay
6,779
HP
6,683
Equinix
6,521
Alphabet
5,220

77%
30%
24%
65%
79%
NA**
-11%
-65%
39%
0%

Company