NEW YORK Exxon Mobil unseated Wal-Mart in the 2009 Fortune 500 list, shrugging off the oil price bubble and weathering what the magazine called the worst year ever for the country's largest publicly traded companies.

Fortune's closely watched list ranked companies by their revenue in 2008. Irving, Texas-based Exxon took in $442.85 billion in revenue last year, up almost 19 percent from 2007. The company also raked in the biggest annual profit, earning $45.2 billion.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart had held the top spot for six of the last seven years but fell to No. 2. Still, the retail giant's 2008 revenue climbed 7 percent to $405.6 billion. The world's largest retailer took in $13.4 billion in annual profit, an increase of about 5 percent.

Although it may have been a good year for Exxon and Wal-Mart, 2008 was far from rosy for most of remaining companies on the list. Overall earnings plunged 85 percent to $98.9 billion from $645 billion in 2007, the biggest one-year decline in the 55-year history of the Fortune 500 list.

Energy companies continued to dominate many of the top positions. Chevron held on to third place with $263.16 billion in revenue, up 25 percent. ConocoPhillips climbed one place to fourth, with $230.76 billion in revenue.

General Electric rose one notch to fifth. General Motors fell two spots to sixth, as revenue fell 18 percent and losses totaled $30.86 billion amid the imploding car market. Crosstown rival Ford followed, with $146.28 billion in revenue.

AT&T moved up two notches to take eighth, with Hewlett-Packard and Valero Energy rounding out the top 10.