When companies like Apple and Microsoft report annual profits of tens of billions of dollars (over $55 billion for Apple; almost $40 billion for Microsoft), it can be hard to conceive of just how much money that really is.

Tipalti broke down how much money the world's biggest companies make by the amount they generate per second, hour and day to give us a sense of how the enormous annual numbers add up.

Below are some key takeaways from the data, and then two charts, one showing how much the most profitable big companies earn per second and the other showing how much the least profitable big companies earn — or lose — per second.

Key Takeaways:

• The top five most profitable companies on the list are, in order of profitability, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Bank of America and Wells Fargo. (Facebook just missed the top five, coming in sixth most profitable; Amazon is tenth.)

• Companies that make annual profits in the tens of billions ($10,000,000,000 and up) generate upward of $300 per second, which is close to $30 million per day.

• Apple, the most profitable company on Tipalti's list, generates $1,752 per second, which adds up to $105,116 per minute, $6,306,963 per hour and $151,386,301 per day.

• Some companies, however, are losing money every second, despite their products' success. The five companies losing the most amount of money per second are (beginning with the most money lost per second): Uber (-$270 per second), Wayfair (-$31), Tesla (-$27), GameStop (-$15) and Bed Bath & Beyond (-$4).

Profitability Of The Largest Companies:

Source: Tipalti.

[Photo by Emanuel Ekström on Unsplash]