Apple’s market capitalization exceeded $3 trillion. The company’s shares rose by about 2.31% to a new high and overcame the price of $190.73
Founded by a Ukrainian by blood, Steve Wozniak, and an American, Steve Jobs, the computer firm, which started in a California garage in 1976, became the first public company to reach a record in capitalization.
For the first time, the title of the most expensive company was won in August 2018, when Apple’s value exceeded $1 trillion. It took 42 years to achieve this. Two years later, Apple was worth $2 trillion.
In January 2022, Apple added another trillion to its value. The company crossed the $3 trillion mark during intraday trading. But then, it failed to stay at this level until the market closed.
«Put together Walmart, Disney, Netflix, Nike, Exxon Mobil, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Morgan Stanley, McDonald’s, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, IBM і Ford.
Apple is still worth more,” – Jack Nicas, a columnist for The New York Times, wrote at the time.
Investors continued believing in the brainchild of Steve Jobs even when in early 2023, the company showed a decline in quarterly profit for the first time in three and a half years. This was due to a shortage of chips and “significant” disruptions in the supply chain from China, which caused delays in the production and delivery of iPhones.
The company announced a projected decline in revenues of about 3%.
However, this did not stop the progress of the corporate titan, which still seems to be growing despite the obstacles on the way.
This year, the tech giant’s second-quarter report, published on May 3, showed revenue of $94.8 billion.
«We are pleased to report an all-time record in Services and a March quarter record for iPhone despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, and to have our installed base of active devices reach an all-time high,» said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO
For the fiscal year ended September 24, 2022, Apple Inc. (AAPL) reported net income of $99.8 billion on revenue of $394.3 billion (FY).
Apple mostly makes money from the line of products developed by Steve Jobs – iPhone, MacBook, iPad, and AirPods.
- iPhone: $205.5 billion
- Mac: $40.2 billion
- iPad: $29.3 billion
Portable devices, home goods, accessories: $41.2 billion
Services: $78.1 billion
However, the company has also expanded its services, in particular, by launching the Apple TV+ streaming service.
Apple’s value is impressive, but its competitors are breathing down its neck. In the near future, another tech giant, Microsoft, may join the club of companies with a capitalization of $3 trillion.
Now, who else is ready to compete for the title of the world’s most expensive company?
Microsoft
Source: Microsoft Facebook
- Market cap: $2.51 trillion
- Revenue (TTM): $207.59 billion
- Gross profit (TTM): $142.09 billion
- Five-year annualized return: 27.81%
- Year founded: 1975
The Windows operating system has been the market leader for many years. According to Statcounter, more than 60% of computers on the planet use Windows. It is natural that Microsoft is consistently among the world’s largest companies. And although Windows is the company’s main profit driver, Microsoft offers consumers a wide range of products and services.
Among them:
- Office Suite software
- Azure cloud platform
- Xbox video game consoles
In 2021, Microsoft surpassed Apple in capitalization. However, a month later, Apple regained the lead.
Saudi Arabian Oil
Source: www.aramco.com
- Market cap: $2.08 trillion
- Revenue (TTM): $589.30 billion
- Gross profit (TTM): $354.67 billion
- Year founded: 1933
Saudi Arabian Oil, also known as Saudi Aramco, is an energy and chemical giant. Owned by the government of Saudi Arabia, it has the largest daily oil production in the world and the second largest proven crude oil reserves of any oil company.
Saudi Aramco’s revenues are highly dependent on oil prices, and so the tumultuous year of 2022 has been a turbulent one for the company. Despite the ups and downs, high demand for oil even helped Saudi Aramco to become the first largest oil company by market capitalization in early May 2002. However, when demand fell and the market began to discuss production restrictions, the oil giant lost its leadership to Apple and Microsoft.
Alphabet (Google)
Source:abc.xyz
- Market cap: $1.52 trillion
- Revenue (TTM): $282.85 billion
- Gross profit (TTM): $156.09 billion
- Five-year annualized return: 16.51%
- Year founded: 1998 (Google), 2015 (Alphabet)
Alphabet was created in 2015 as a result of Google’s restructuring. For ordinary users, Google is associated with the most widespread search engine in the world. However, it is only one of many widely used Alphabet products.
The company also earns money on such common products as:
- Email service Gmail
- Video site YouTube
- Navigation apps Waze and Maps
- Pixel smartphones
Amazon
Source: Amazon Facebook
- Market cap: $1.34 trillion
- Revenue (TTM): $524.90 billion
- Gross profit (TTM): $234.77 billion
- Five-year annualized return: 8.98%
- Year founded: 1994
E-commerce leader Amazon started out as an online bookstore. Today it is the largest online store in the world where you can buy almost anything. However, this is only one of the company’s many products.
Its Amazon Prime service has more than 200 million users worldwide. It’s also the largest cloud provider in the world with Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon also has its own streaming service Amazon Prime Video and video game broadcasting via Twitch.
The company also owns the Whole Foods Market grocery store chain.
Nvidia
Source: NVIDA Facebook
- Market cap: $1.05 trillion
- Revenue (TTM): $25.88 billion
- Gross profit (TTM): $14.57 billion
- Five-year annualized return: 48.23%
- Year founded: 1993
Nvidia is an American manufacturer of graphics processing units (GPUs) and video adapters. Initially, they were used for computer graphics and video games. The real success came to Nvidia, however, when their products began to be massively used for cryptocurrency mining, a process where the computing power of a computer is used to verify cryptocurrency transactions and receive rewards. Nvidia also develops hardware and software for artificial intelligence (AI).
Tesla
Source: Tesla Facebook
- Market cap: $886.89 billion
- Revenue (TTM): $86.04 billion
- Gross profit (TTM): $19.90 billion
- Five-year annualized return: 68.25%
- Year founded: 2003
Tesla is one of several pillars of the empire built by the eccentric and visionary Elon Musk. And it is perhaps the only one of his businesses that has physical and liquid assets. Tesla is well-known for its cars. However, that’s not all it can offer. In addition to electric cars, Tesla has other “green” products. For example, solar roofs, individual solar panels, or Powerwall, an integrated battery system that stores solar energy.
The past few years have not been easy for the world’s most valuable companies. The Covid 19 pandemic and the war unleashed by Russia on the European continent caused a number of challenges to be overcome. Corporations have been adjusting to changing logistics routes, reorienting markets, and getting used to employees who no longer want to work in offices.
Will these challenges become a springboard to a qualitatively new leap in the capitalization of the “most expensive”?
Source: The Gaze
