MarketCap
Latest
Apple is the world's most valuable company... again
Wow, it seems like it was only yesterday that we were reporting that Apple had slipped by ExxonMobil as the world's most valuable company. Well, actually it was almost two years ago, but we're happy to tell you that Apple's stock price has soared recently, bringing the company back into the top spot once again in terms of market capitalization. It's interesting to note that back on August 10, 2011, Apple's market cap was at a paltry US$337.17 billion, nowhere close to this morning's $416.3 billion. Take that, Michael Dell...
Will Apple hit a $1 trillion market valuation?
A maelstrom of headlines hit the internet yesterday claiming Apple was the most valuable company in history now that its market cap hit $622 billion. While this may not be true once you adjust Microsoft's 1999 record-setting value of $618.9 billion for inflation, the bigger question we should be asking is whether Apple will climb past $1 trillion. According to a report in AppleInsider, analyst Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets believes Apple is only at the beginning of its climb and will march its way upward to surpass the $1 trillion mark. He points to Apple's upcoming product launches and notes that the company has a lot of room to grow in its current markets. White points to recent IDC estimates, showing that Apple only controls 4.7 percent of the PC market and 64.4 percent of the mobile phone market. Based on these observations, Topeka Capital Markets is sticking with its 12-month price target of $1,111.00 for Apple's stock (AAPL).
Apple stock soars, company worth more than Google, Microsoft combined
Whoa! As of this writing (noon EST) Apple stock has reached a new high of US$493.85, which is a record share price. It also gives the company a market capitalization of $465 billion, which exceeds the combined totals of Google and Microsoft. Apple passed Microsoft in Market Cap back in May of 2010. At the current price, Apple is comfortably ahead of Exxon Mobil, which has a market cap of about $400 million billion. Just yesterday we reported that Apple had gained $100 in share price since Steve Jobs died last October, but those numbers are already outdated.
Apple stock gains nearly $100 since Steve's passing
Apple 2.0 editor Philip Elmer-DeWitt is back today with another fascinating Apple statistic: "[Apple] has gained nearly one Facebook in value since Steve Jobs died." Elmer-DeWitt remarks that the share price of AAPL on October 4, 2011, the day before Jobs passed away, was US$372.50 and that the market capitalization of the company was about $347 billion. Now, just four short months later, the stock price is (as of this morning) $472.66, over $100 greater than before Jobs died. That puts the market capitalization of Apple, Inc. at about $440 billion -- over $90 billion of growth in just four months. Those numbers are staggering. $90 billion is about nine-tenths of the value that Facebook has been given in advance of its upcoming IPO. Elmer-DeWitt notes that it's hard to argue that Apple is overvalued. He quotes Erik Savitz of Forbes noting that even after backing out Apple's $100 billion cash horde, valuation of AAPL is just 2.6 times revenues and 10 times earnings. The Apple 2.0 post ends on a rather dour note, with Elmer-DeWitt noting that "two prominent Apple bulls" agree that Apple's shares are ready for a sell-off.
App Store hypothetical market cap beats RIM's value
Research in Motion, maker of the once-ubiquitous BlackBerry, hasn't been doing so well this year. As each month goes buy, its smartphone continues to lose market share to the likes of Apple's iPhone and Android-powered phones. Just last week, RIM's stock sank after dismal quarterly earnings and a less-than-stellar outlook. That stock slump brought the company to a market cap of approximately US$7.04 billion last Friday. As smartphone market analyst Brian Hall was the first to point out, that's less than Apple's App Store is worth. Yeah, just the App Store alone is worth more than all of the BlackBerry maker. Now, to be sure the App Store is not an individual company or subsidiary of Apple. But its value is estimated to be worth $7.08 billion to Apple. That estimate is based on an analysis by Trefis that says Apple's App Store makes up 2% of the total market cap of the company. And actually as of close of market yesterday, RIM is worth even less than on Friday when the numbers were first run -- about $6.7 billion -- and Apple is worth more, so the App Store has actually increased its lead. Not to kick a company while it's down (too late) that means that not only is RIM getting its butt kicked by Apple's iPhone, it's getting it's butt kicked by just the App Store that runs on the phone that's taking all its market share. What's worse is that there's really no sign of a turnaround strategy for RIM, although some bloggers think they have the answer.
Asymco graphs Apple's performance under Steve Jobs
Asymco always has great graphical analysis of Apple's performance, and the site's latest is no exception. Dirk Schmidt has analyzed Apple's market cap during the Steve Jobs era, and the graphs show just how dramatic Apple's turnaround was during Jobs's time as CEO. At the beginning of Jobs's tenure, Apple's market cap was lower than every one of its competitors. But after an average 42 percent increase in market cap from 1997 to 2011, Apple became the most valuable publicly-traded company in the world. Asymco's second graph, which shows Apple's of combined market cap among its competitors, shows how dramatic an effect Apple has had on the tech sector. Almost everyone is getting squeezed by Apple's ascendancy, but it seems Microsoft has been hit hardest of all; the company that Windows built has gone from over 50 percent of the market cap share down to measurably less than Apple's share. If you're a graph junkie, definitely head over to Asymco and check out their analysis for yourself.
Apple is worth more than all of these things
With Apple (AAPL) having a market cap of roughly US$387 billion, it becomes the most valuable company in the US. Matter of fact, it currently has a $30 billion lead over the next most valuable company, Exxon Mobil (XOM). However, market caps are boring. What's fun is to look at how much Apple is worth compared to other things. Like drugs, the Star Wars franchise and Denmark. That's exactly what the Things Apple is Worth More Than tumblr does. It turns out that at a market cap of $380 billion+, Apple is worth more than: All the illegal drugs in the world ($321 billion) The Star Wars, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Steven King, and Twilight franchises combined ($49 billion) The GDP of Denmark ($337 billion) and my personal favorite, the American obesity epidemic ($300 billion) The tumblr blog has more gems Apple is worth so be sure to check it out. It's an interesting list that really puts it in perspective just how much the Mac, iPhone and iPad maker is worth.
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 will be the first $1 trillion company
"A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion trillion dollars." If there's one company that will hit a trillion dollar market cap, it will be Apple, according to USA Today. Apple could do it in the next three years. USA Today came up with Apple's trillion dollar market cap based on its five-year geometric mean average increase of 59% a year. So given today's market value of about $310 billion, if Apple continues to increase in value by 59% each year, in 2014, we'll have the first trillion dollar company. How huge is that? The most valuable company ever was Microsoft in 2000. That year it hit a $604 billion market cap. So, could Apple beat Microsoft's value in its best year by more than 65%? My money is on Apple (and has been since November of 2002 when I started buying the stock). The way I look at it is that Apple has its hands in three primary markets: computers, smartphones and tablets. The first market is fairly maxed out -- there's not a lot of room for the market as a whole to grow -- but since Apple only has around 10% of that market, it still has lots of space to grow in it. The inverse is true for smartphones and tablets. Apple is a key player in both those markets, but each of those markets still has decades of growth in front of them, which means that even if Apple doesn't hold a lead spot, it still has tremendous room for the growth of its products in those markets.
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.
Apple's market cap passes $300 billion
After blasting through the $330 per share for Apple's stock today, the company now has a market capitalization valued at around $302 billion dollars. While market cap isn't everything, this is a substantial shift from the way things used to be. Apple used to be the underdog! Remember when Apple was on life support in the '90s after a series of bland and uninspiring CEOs and product lines? Since the return of Steve Jobs and his hand-picked crew of innovators, however, the company has seen a truly remarkable rise in profits and marketshare while expanding into completely new markets for the company. Apple is on the rise in a big way, and if what we saw in 2010 is any indication, 2011 will see even more growth for our favorite mobile device company.
Entelligence: Market caps and dunce caps
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide. The buzzword of last week was "market cap." To those unfamiliar, market cap is the total value of outstanding shares of a company, and on May 26th at around 3PM Eastern, Apple's market value reached $225.1 billion, surpassing Microsoft's $222.3 billion. Apple isn't the largest technology company around, but it's become the most valuable, and it's valuation is second only to Exxon in the US. Later that same week, Microsoft announced that Robbie Bach and J Allard, the head of its Entertainment and Devices group and the division's CTO, were both leaving the company. There's been speculation that these two events were somehow intertwined, but I don't think that's the case. In addition, as good as Robbie and J are, there's more to the E & D team than two people -- as grandpa used to say, the cemeteries are full of people who couldn't be replaced. Historically, Microsoft has always been two companies, the parts that made lots of money (Windows, Office, Server) and the parts that don't make money yet but might someday soon. E & D is the latest incarnation of the latter. Let's take a closer look.
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.
Nintendo officially bigger than Sony in Japan
After months of outselling Sony hardware in both North America and Japan, Nintendo has edged past the electronics giant in the one area that really matters to gamers: market capitalization! Reuters reports that Nintendo's Japanese shares have quadrupled in the past four years to a total value of 6.54 trillion yen ($52.76 billion), just ahead of Sony's 6.5 trillion yen ($52.44 billion) [update: fixed typo] market cap. That's a massive 0.6 percent lead!Before you trade in all those classic Pokémon cartridges for Nintendo stock, be aware that this sector of market is prone to swings. "This is one of those companies that is not exactly making daily necessities. One negative factor and shares could take a dive," Mizuho Securities analyst Takeshi Koyama told Reuters. And don't disregard Sony just because they're technically slightly smaller -- despite their troubles, Sony Corp. stock has risen 67 percent in the last two years, ten percent ahead of the the Nikkei average.Previously: Nintendo closing gap on Sony's market value
