Record sales of Macs, iPods and iPhones have pushed Apple to a 14th place in Forbes magazine’s annual list of America’s fastest growing tech companies.

It is a phenomenal achievement to make the list at all considering Apple’s young age.  Apple’s annual $33 billion in revenue far exceeded every other company on the list save No. 2 Google, which had a 2008 revenue of $21.7 billion.

Each company’s rank is based on its annualized sales growth from the previous five years. Apple’s was 40 percent, Google’s 72 percent. The No. 1 company, Illumina, grew at an eye-popping 110 percent.

A supplemental article on newcomers to the list says Apple “is growing more like a technology start-up than a big company.”