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Daily Update for August 2, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple poised to become world's first trillion dollar company by 2014
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster raised his estimates for Apple share prices this morning, with a new 12-month price target of US$910 per share. Not long after that point, Munster expects the price of AAPL to go beyond the thousand dollar mark, which would translate to a market capitalization of over one trillion dollars. That's $1,000,000,000,000, folks. No other company has ever reached a market cap in that range. Munster bases his bullish forecast on continued strong sales of the iPhone. He believes, based on current data, that 70 percent of all owners of two-year-old iPhones will upgrade to a newer model of the iPhone, accounting for 33 percent of all sales in a given quarter through 2015. Munster's not the only Wall Street analyst looking at those lofty figures. Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets said yesterday that he believes Apple shares will reach $1,001 a share, based largely on his thought that Apple will enter the television market sometime in the next year. That market makes up a $100 billion opportunity for the company.
Daily Update for February 9, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Apple is now the world's most valuable company
Apple and ExxonMobil played market cap tag yesterday, but at market close today Apple has pulled ahead and is now the most valuable company in the world. Apple's market cap now stands at US$337.17 billion, over $6 billion more than Exxon's $330.77 billion market cap. Market cap is only one way of measuring a company's value, and one could certainly argue that Exxon's chief product, petroleum, is a far more vital commodity to the world market than Macs, iPhones, and iPads. It's still a watershed moment for Apple, however, and the psychological impact of having the world's highest market cap is pretty phenomenal for a company that was on the ropes just 12 years ago. Will Apple hold onto its spot at the top? It's impossible to say at this point, but unless Apple really stuffs something up in the near future, its competitors are going to have a hard time unseating Apple from its spot as the financial pinnacle of the tech industry.
Apple briefly passes ExxonMobil for largest US market cap
As we reported earlier today, Apple (AAPL) shares were up to US$367.91. At that price, for a few moments, Apple was "worth" $342 billion (overall market capitalization) while ExxonMobil (XOM) was at $341 billion with a $70.71 share price. That made Apple -- briefly -- the world's most valuable company. Once the market closed, however, Exxon was worth a whopping $352.90 billion, and Apple closed with a market cap of $347.10 billion. Not bad for either of them. The markets have obviously been volatile this week and last, leading to large losses for both companies' stocks, but Apple has managed to recover more today than Exxon, leading it to overtake the oil giant, if briefly. Apple is currently off about 8% from its all-time high of $404 a share, but ExxonMobil is off nearly 20% for its $88 high. Given that oil prices are continuing to fall, it looks like Apple could yet pull ahead for some time to retain the title "Most Valuable Company in the World."
Apple set to surpass ExxonMobil as world's most valuable company
Several sites are reporting that Apple is about to pass Exxon Mobil as the world's most valued company, by market capitalization. StreetInsider.com reports that Apple's market cap is US$333.7 billion while Exxon Mobil's is $338 billion, meaning they could hit that cap today. We'll keep an eye on it and let you know when Apple surpasses this landmark milestone. If it turns out to be true, congratulations to Steve Jobs and everyone at Apple. That's an amazing achievement.
HTC's market capitalization reaches $33.8b, overshadows Nokia and RIM
Nokia once said that going with Android was like "peeing in your pants" for temporary warmth. Well, even if that warmth doesn't last forever, it has now helped one of its upstart competitors, HTC, to rise beyond Nokia in terms of market valuation. This is a somewhat beguiling metric to compare companies by -- market cap measures the value of a company's shares available on the market, and not every company has the same proportion of its overall value available in stocks -- but it illustrates well the diametrically opposite directions in which the two mobile phone makers are moving. Bloomberg informs us that HTC's stock has risen by 33 percent this year, while Nokia's has shrunk by 19 percent. Surpassing Nokia now means HTC is the world's third most valuable smartphone maker. Of course, neither Nokia nor RIM is sitting idly by and letting the Taiwanese whippersnapper have things its own way, however both companies' roadmaps for re-conquering the smartphone high-end seem to stretch far off into the 2012 distance. As for HTC, we expect it to launch another Sensation of a device on Tuesday.
Apple worth more than $300 billion, your first iPod barely pushing $20 on eBay
Remember when Apple edged past Microsoft in the market capitalization game, way back in 2010? We were young and innocent, and AAPL was only trading at $249.99 a share. Fast forward seven months and Apple has left Microsoft in the dust, with a share price at $329.75 that puts the company's market capitalization at more than $300 billion -- making it one of only two companies worth that much in the stock market's eyes. Naturally, market cap isn't the only game afoot -- Exxon Mobil still rules the top spot, and we can't think of the last time oil did any hard work revolutionizing device UI -- but it's a pretty nice mark for a little Cupertino firm that would've been called the tech industry underdog just a decade ago.
Ballmer downplays Microsoft's shift in market value, says it's a 'long game'
Nothing too shocking here, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has made his first public comments on his company's recent slippage in market cap, and he's unsurprisingly downplaying the numbers. Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, Ballmer said simply that "we are executing very well," and "that's going to lead to great products and great success," later adding that, "I will make more profits and certainly there is no technology company in the planet which is as profitable as we are," and that "stock markets will take care of the rest." What's more, while he seemingly didn't refer to Apple by name, he did say that "it is a long game," and that "we have good competitors ... we too are very good competitors." As you might expect, Ballmer was also asked about the recent shakeup at Microsoft, but he apparently wouldn't say anything more than that he "wouldn't predict any drastic changes" in strategy for the division, and that "we'll have to accelerate plans" -- although it's not exactly clear what will be "accelerated."
AAPL passes Microsoft to reach 2nd on US market cap list
We expected it to happen eventually, but not quite this fast: Apple's market capitalization now exceeds that of longtime rival Microsoft. As of the 4pm ET market close today, Apple's total share value bests Microsoft's by nearly US$3 billion -- Apple stands at US$222.5 billion, while Microsoft is at US$219.53 billion. You may see some further fluctuation in aftermarket trading. This means that, at least in terms of market capitalization, the only US company worth more than Apple is Exxon, at US$278 billion. Apple surpassed Walmart's market cap last month, and Henry Blodget pointed out this morning that Apple was already ahead of Microsoft via the 'enterprise value' metric (accounting for the companies' relative amounts of cash and debt). Oddly, Apple's leapfrogging of Microsoft's market cap has had less to do with Apple's stock and more to do with Microsoft's; over the past 60 days or so, Apple's market cap has grown by less than US$10 billion, while Microsoft's has plummeted by almost $40 billion. No matter which way you look at it, though, Apple's surpassing of Microsoft's market cap is, just as the New York Times says, an absolutely stunning turnaround. Not bad for a company that was all but on its deathbed in the late 1990s.
Apple and Microsoft now neck and neck in market capitalization
Apple and Microsoft, together at last -- in terms of market capitalization, anyway. While that may have seemed inevitable to anyone that's been watching the markets lately, it's certainly nonetheless a significant milestone in the history between the two companies, and all the more striking if you look at a chart comparing the two companies over, say, the past five years (see for yourself after the break). As you can see above, however, Microsoft is still hanging onto a slight lead by one measure of market capitalization, but if you use another factoring in debt and other factors, Apple is now actually ahead of Microsoft in total value as of yesterday, and behind only Exxon Mobil among all US companies. No word on any celebrations breaking out in Cupertino just yet, but Apple will soon have a prime opportunity to do a bit of crowing should it choose to.
Apple market cap tops $100 billion
Our favorite stock just keeps going up, and earlier this week Apple Inc. broke the $100 billion market capitalization barrier. With the stock price heading over $116 a share, the value of the company continues to climb. And analysts remain bullish, with Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty talking about a near doubling of the market cap within the next 12 months as a viable possibility. Of course this would hinge on the success of the iPhone plus expanding Mac market share, but at this point nobody wants to bet against Cupertino. Unable to deny themselves a little schadenfreude, many on the Mac web are noting that this puts Apple (~$102b at the time of this writing) well above Dell's market cap (~$61b), and closing in on HP (~$122b) and IBM (~$158b). Only Microsoft remains way out in front (~$292b).[via AppleInsider]
